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Welcome to the Wild West

For Sale: Beautiful, sunny duplex in Rainbow. Great views of Whistler, Blackcomb and Black Tusk, full sunshine all day, solar panels to make you feel green and space-saving built-ins.
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For Sale: Beautiful, sunny duplex in Rainbow. Great views of Whistler, Blackcomb and Black Tusk, full sunshine all day, solar panels to make you feel green and space-saving built-ins. Asking three times the WHA-approved asking price but what the heck, if you've got the money, anything's possible in this town. Contact Max at Pique NewsMagazine.

OK, just to be completely honest, my beautiful, sunny duplex isn't for sale. If it were, I'd only ask the WHA-approved price. But am I the only one who thinks there are two sets of rules in Tiny Town: one for you and me and the rest of the workerbees — in Canadian parlance, have-nots — and one for the folks for whom money has ceased to have any real meaning apart from the power it seems to impart to thumb your nose at any and all regulations, regardless of how reasonable, well thought out and generally acceptable they may be to, well, everyone else?

Used to be we had these quaint institutions that went under the general description "government," that more or less levelled the playing field by passing things called zoning regulations and bylaws. To put some teeth into those, they would issue building permits and conduct inspections as things got built. If people decided to build something other than what they had a permit for, those institutions would often make them stop building, or sometimes even make them tear down something they'd already built, because it wasn't what they were permitted to build.

The combined effect of zoning regs and bylaws, the building department who issued permits and the building inspectors who checked to make sure things were getting built correctly and according to approved plans, was, not surprisingly, that builders and people paying the bills mostly complied with those guidelines. Of course, that was a different time and, truth be told, even then really wealthy people often thumbed their noses at rules they were sure were only meant for the lesser classes, not themselves.

This smooth running machinery began to get out of calibration in Whistler, oh, before the town was even called Whistler. Squatters didn't really care much for what little zoning there may have been, but they did tread softly on the land. Nonetheless, they were dealt with efficiently, if harshly, sometimes resulting in practice sessions for the nascent fire department.

Rich folks were dealt with somewhat more gently, not infrequently with a nod and a wink. After all, squatters paid squat in property taxes whereas rich folk paid handsomely, money being, by definition, something they had a great deal of.

Squatters were also obvious. Rich folk hired skilled builders, craftsmen who were also part magician and could make things like a few thousand square feet seem to disappear quicker than you could spell check abracadabra. They made rec rooms, home theatres, guest suites, and wine cellars virtually invisible when building inspectors came around, either through carefully placed false walls or blindingly obvious, not-so-buried treasure. Inspection completed, presto! What was once invisible became visible.

Of course, that extra space was illegal... sort of. The builders knew it, the homeowners knew it and the complicit real estate agents who would sell it on to the next buyer knew it. But they knew it in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink kind of way.

But it was all OK though because everyone involved, including successive councils, just turned a blind eye. This, of course, is not to be confused with blind justice; that's a different column.

On rare occasions, things would get out of hand. The more egregious violations, especially if they involved matters of questionable safety, say, stuffing 23 beds in an attic with no other way out than the drop-down stairs which, in the event of fire would probably be the first thing to burn, were dealt with harshly. But illegal basement suites were dealt with in much the same way loving dog owners scold new puppies when they poop on the carpet.

Mind you, if you're fortunate enough to be selected to invest your hard-earned dollars — and likely go deep into debt — to help the town build social infrastructure, which is to say Whistler Housing Authority housing, one of your rewards will be a very onerous set of rules and regulations — violations of which are dealt with severely. One of the other rewards will be a questionably smart investment, but one that will allow you to live in town and work at a couple of jobs, none of which on their own pay a living wage.

Should you violate those rules and, for example, rent out a bedroom for a bit more than the guidelines say you can, or move in with your new partner and rent your place out for too long while you sort out your long-term living decisions, you may well be fined or forced to sell your place to someone waiting for the chance to be you.

Just to be clear, I whole-heartedly support the WHA and its rules. I have considerable scorn for those who play fast and loose with it and personally wouldn't cry if they were run out of town.

But that's not the issue, is it? The issue is one of fundamental fairness.

This council promised to deal with the illegal space issue. They did so by waving a magic wand and making it legal. There were two big benefits to this, three if you count no longer having to go through the charade of having the building and inspection departments pretend to do its job. The first was illegal space, now legal, would be subject to property tax, flowing more money into muni coffers. The second was the opportunity to make sure that illegal space wasn't a firetrap, or some other disaster waiting to happen.

Did it reward those who broke the rules? You bet it did. Was there an implicit quid pro quo that builders would stop building illegal space just because rich people threw money at them? Apparently not. Did it indicate council would take a harder line with future illegal space? Not if the charade last month at Treetop Lane, constructed several years ago, is any indication.

Welcome to the wild west, folks. Got money? Build whatever you want. No need to fuss over permits, inspections, zoning, that quaint notion of sustainability and, quite probably, out-of-date notions like bed caps. Money talks; bullshit walks and justice is both blind and dumb here in Tiny Town.

The subterranean shenanigans on Treetop Lane should have been a no-brainer. Turns out it was... literally. It sends a clear message to anyone wanting to build pretty much anything in town. It also sends a clear message to everyone who believes the social contract means we all play by the rules.

That message? Sucker.