RESIDENT HOPES TO AVOID PAYING FOR WALL SHE SAYS THE TOWN OWNS

A DISINTEGRATING CONCRETE WALL SEPARATES SANDY BRAND'S HOME FROM A CREEK – A WALL THE TOWN WANTS HER TO PAY FOR, SHE SAYS

A town council recommendation passed Wednesday night (March 8) could give Innisfil resident Sandy Brand the fair shake she's looking for.

The Town of Innisfilwants her to take care of a concrete wall that sits on town property, Brand told Simcoe.com on Wednesday. The wall is placed between a creek that empties into Lake Simcoe and her house on

Crystal Beach Road.

If she has to fix it, it could cost her up to $80,000, she said.

"I bought this place in '07. In about 2010-2012, I approached the town for help because I could see it was disintegrating."

But Brand didn't get the result she was looking for.

"All that led me to was getting an encroachment agreement for a tiny corner of my house," she said, which meant that corner was on town property.

However, Brand has since found an ally on council.

Coun. Alex Waters put forward a motion at Wednesday night's town council meeting for a thirdparty engineer to check out the site and it was passed with only Coun. Robert Saunders voting against it.

If the concrete wall is in place for more than just keeping the house stable

and is instead part of the town's larger flooding and water management strategy, then it would mean less

financial cost for Brand, who lives by herself.

"Sandy approached me well over a year ago and let

me know some of the issues she was having because her house is so close to the creek," Waters told Simcoe.com

ahead of the council meeting.

"She was concerned with the retaining wall collapsing, that it would put her house in jeopardy, especially with all the work that was being done upstream to improve drainage."

While it's clear the town owns part of the land north of Brand's home, there's some discrepancy regarding the wall and who owns the area closest to her home, he said.

"I have been supporting her in terms of trying to work with the town to look at who is responsible for that retaining wall because the history on what's going on here is really vague, it's basically non-existent," Waters said.

"I put forward the motion to get an independent assessment in terms of the purpose of the retaining wall because that seems to be the crux of the problem."