Whereas there are many situations throughout BC where municipal utilities are located within private property and no associated statutory right of way or easement was registered against title to the property in the Land Title Office at the time of installation many years ago; And whereas municipalities are often responsible for or are willing to assume responsibility for these utilities within private property because they are of benefit to the public and essential to the operation and maintenance of municipal services: Therefore be it resolved that that the provincial government work with local governments to develop legislation that would permit the registration of statutory rights of way to resolve historic issues with unregistered statutory rights of way or easements for municipal utility works located within private properties in an expeditious and cost-effective manner.
Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development The Ministry supports local governments efforts to perfect registration of statutory rights of way SRWs to protect municipal infrastructure built on private land. Two mechanisms are presently available to those governments: - Section 218 of the Land Title Act which enables municipalities to both create and register a SRW against the title of a private property either at the time of installation of municipal infrastructure or subsequently; this requires local governments to obtain the consent of landowners to establish and register the SRWs; and - Exercise of the expropriation powers found in the Community Charter. Government is not inclined to propose legislation which would unilaterally impose a charge on a private land owner without the consent of that landowner.