A lawsuit that could have been resolved “with a little common sense around the kitchen table” will end up costing Langley Township taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.

The court case pitted Murray Wood against the Township over the municipality’s demand that the Willowbrook property owner pay for the re-alignment of Jeffries Brook from an adjoining property to his own land.

This was to allow Sandhill Developments to build more than 390 condos, but the Township’s requirement set Wood up for a potential loss of millions of dollars.

“Our damages would have been the loss of our land, development rights, and the cost of constructing a Class A salmon stream through the property for 700 feet,” Wood said.

Had the judgment gone against him, Wood’s loss would have been close to $7 million.

His legal fees, which he says have mounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, must now be picked up by Township taxpayers.

There will be no appeal of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask’s decision, said Township administrator Mark Bakken.

Bakken said the Township’s legal fees have not yet been tabulated.

According to Township lawyers Bull, Housser & Tupper, the judge decided that there is nothing in the Official Community Plan which mandates the re-alignment of Jeffries Brook through the Wood property if and when Wood or a subsequent owner applies for rezoning.

However, the lawyers added, there is nothing to stop the Township from requiring voluntary re-alignment “as part of its discretion when deciding whether a rezoning is in the public interest.”

Bakken said that the Township could amend the community Neighbourhood Plan “to make it clear that the stream goes through his property.”

He added: “What we will do is that if or when Mr. Wood makes an application to rezone his property we will look at the application, or other suggestions he may have, to ensure that there is adequate and proper protection of Jeffries Brook in that location.”

“It’s too bad for all taxpayers,” Wood said. “Why should I be responsible for constructing and protecting the neighbour’s creek?”

He added, “It could have been settled with a little common sense around the kitchen table. We offered to do that from 2000, but they were not interested.”

Only one councillor, Kim Richter, voted against the bylaws and development permit which would have allowed Sandhill Developments Ltd. to proceed with 393 strata apartment units and 12,000 square feet of commercial/office space at 20141 and 20197 66 Ave., adjacent to Wood’s property.

On Sept. 15, 2008, Wood’s lawyer, Jonathan Baker, told council that the approval of the project would result in years of legal battles.

“It is the most brazen thing one can imagine,” Baker told council at that time.

Baker said that other property owners with creeks running through their land are required to live with the consequences of Department of Fisheries and Oceans creek-bank development setbacks.

But in Wood’s case, the DFO approved the relocation of the stream through two acres of his property, and so did every level of government. Yet Wood has never had a creek on his property.

Wood noted that when both Wal-Mart and Polygon’s Steeplechase townhouse were built the developers enhanced and protected Jeffries Brook solely on their own sites.

The Sandhill development site lies between Wal-Mart and Steeplechase.

“The brook has been flowing for thousands of years through the middle of the Sandhill site,” he said.

What has already happened to the stream has had dire consequences for fish.

“Part of Jeffries Brook has been put into a pipe and killed every salmon in the stream,” Wood said.

“The Township not only stonewalled us, they also claimed ingeniously that only on the Sandhill site the creek is a non-creek,” Wood said.

“They stonewalled our every effort to reason and sit down and discuss it and they refused all the information.

They provided no plausible explanation for it, no rationale, no good environmental reason, no good engineering reason, and no reason that benefit the public,” he said.

He applauded the judge for making a ruling “that those people with creeks need to protect them and those without them should not be required to have them forced down their throats.”

The Township had demanded that Wood give up $2.5 million worth of lands voluntarily and spend $1.5 million constructing the salmon-bearing Jeffries Brook through his land as a condition of Wood building on or rezoning his property.

Wood maintained that development setbacks from the stream bank, on both the north and east boundaries of his property, would have left him him little developable land.

The complete judgment can be found here.