While most
North Shore residential property owners
garnered 10 to 20 per cent increases in
the assessed value of their homes in
2005, Nancy Van Insberghe’s property
value plummeted by nearly 91 per cent.
Insberghe’s property, located at 2430
Chapman Way, is directly adjacent to the
home destroyed during last year’s
horrific mudslide that killed Eliza
Kuttner and seriously injured her
husband, Michael.
When the 2005 tax roll came out her
house was valued at $670,000. BC
Assessment now has the value of property
pegged at $62,300 in the recently
released 2006 tax roll.
Her property is one of the nine that the
District of North Vancouver had planned
to purchase in the aftermath of the
January 19th slide, but she learned
recently that the District — which has
already reached settlements with eight
of the other homeowners — would not be
offering her a full buy-out package.
According to the District, the
preliminary assessment of her home
concluded that it was only necessary to
purchase a small portion of 2.2-acre
property — the driveway area, which was
directly impacted by the slide.
While the District has maintained that
it is committed to ongoing discussions
and reaching a fair and positive
resolution with Van Insberghe, an
insurance coverage issue associated with
the property appears to be a major
sticking point.
Van Insberghe, who is at the moment
waiting for the results of a new
geotechnical report that will ostensibly
determine the fate of her property, was
understandably upset by the swift
devaluation of her home.
“It’s your biggest asset, your life
savings are tied up in it, it’s not like
you can just walk away from it. All
$62,300 of it,” she said Tuesday.
She’s hoping the District will resolve
the issue soon. “It’s a huge burden not
to have it resolved,” she said. “I wish
I could be [optimistic] but until I get
some concrete evidence it’s really hard
to be: it’s been on and off, up and
down. It’s just been devastating to
never know where you stand.”
Other slide-affected homes that have
been purchased by the District also
received drastic declines in assessed
value in 2006, with prices ranging
between $51,800 (2274 Chapman Way) to
$47,400 (2175 Berkley Ave.)
Jason Grant, an assessor for the North
Shore/Squamish Valley region, noted that
“the properties affected by the buyout
were reduced by BC Assessment to nominal
values to reflect their intended future
use as green space.”
Grant said he had no knowledge of being
contacted by Van Insberghe directly but
encouraged anyone with questions about
their assessment to contact BC
Assessment.
“If you look at the other ones, every
one that has been purchased — the nine —
they’re all reduced in excess of 90 per
cent, including mine, but mine was on
the list to be purchased,” Van Insberghe
noted.
“It’s unbelievable. What can you say?”
she added. “Everybody else is jumping
for joy because they have this increase
in value and I had a 91 per cent
decrease.”
One of Van Insberghe’s neighbours,
located at 2274 Chapman Way, received
$747,000 for their home from the
District in the buyout settlement.
District spokeswoman Colleen Brow said
it was not appropriate for the
municipality to comment on a decision
made by BC Assessment.
“Ms. Van Insberghe is encouraged to
bring up the matter with the BC
Assessment Authority but we are not
privy to their assessment process and
unfortunately are unable to comment on
that,” Brow said.