Our Racial Targetted Experience in Harmony

I got out of bed 4 o’clock in the afternoon and started my day with a beer like usual ever since the third time I was made to stop building my deck that is completely legal. Then my son saw me and he asked how big our deck is going to be. I showed him and he said “I think that’s pretty big, when it’s done we can put that play table you built us on there and we can have barbecues.” Then he started jumping up and down with joy.

That broke me down completely. That is why I feel like I can’t go on anymore. I don’t know how to tell him that we might have to rip the deck out just because we look different than others around here. I don’t know how to tell him that I’m really sorry for bringing him into this world of hurt. I don’t know how to tell him that as a father I have trouble teaching him how to be brave in this life…

Intro

Thanks for taking time to visit my site. Here’s a brief description of why I believe our family has been targeted racially. And I will have all the detail timeline and communications listed after to show the undue hardship the developer applied against us during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Without even bother to attempt communicating with us, the developer retained the largest law firm in Canada to send us a demand letter telling us to remove our trailers from the property. Did not offer the option to have them screened in which is allowed in this community. And there are many white people in the neighbourhood with trailers that are not screened in either. But the developer’s lawyer said they checked and no one else was in violation, which I have many pictures to prove otherwise. However I still explained to them that I was in the process of building a garage and fence so the trailers will be eventually screened in.

Then they would not let my family go to the lake because of the trailers. Even though we were paying the community fees just like everyone else. So my kids got punished for what the complaining neighbours don’t like about us as a race, which I will also prove to you is true.

They were also citing that I have construction materials on the front yard(part of our property not the side walk). I was replacing my front deck with composite decking and the deck boards were there for a few weeks for easy access. Every front deck in the area were built the same way! The section they quoted in the Restrictive Covenant also states I have 18 months to complete the work.

And they were citing “long term stockpiling of soil in your back yard”. I was having excavation done in the back to run the sewer line to the future garage location and the work lasted less then 2 months including the time to wait for county inspector to come out.

They even cited a section in the Restrictive Covenant that all landscaping is supposed to be done for a corner lot. And we do not have a corner lot.

All of the above happen during the middle of the pandemic in 2020. And it’s hard to get work done during that time let alone that I’m not comfortable with having all the trade people coming in contact with us. But in August, 2020 the developer’s lawyer said their client lost confident in my fulfilling my promises then registered a $60,000 caveat against our house for “future legal costs”.

I was building a deck behind the house 60 feet from the back lane. And it’s literally sitting on the ground, 8 inch in height at the most. I checked with the county before starting and was told that it should be considered a patio so no permit is required. Then half way through the developer made me stop and apply for their “architectural approval” to “to ensure cohesion in Community to ensure the longevity and sustained value of a Community”. No one would even see that deck once my garage and fence is done.

You might ask why I wouldn’t just move my trailer to a storage and avoid all the fuss like their lawyer suggested. Well I can’t just keep my head down at the back of the bus and try to enjoy the ride. That’s just not me. And I thought one is not faulted for being different in this country.

Everything I put on this site is my true believe or facts to my best knowledge which I look forward to proving in a court of law, if there is not enough materials below to support my claim already.

In 2017

We purchased this spec home in Harmony with the main reason being the lots are quite large and they claim to allow trailers being parked on the property as a selling point. They said I just have to get them “screened”.

We took procession of the house in December and moved in early 2018 not knowing this will be the beginning of a nightmare that would cost my courage to live on.

And by the way they built our house using the exact same colour siding as the one next to us. Tells you how much the developer really cared about the looks of the community…

At the same time my father was sentenced to 14 years in prison back in China because the company he worked at didn’t give a bid to some very powerful people who retaliated by using their government connection to frame my father and his colleges for something they didn’t do.

So I have been travelling back and forth to China trying to help out my family with that situation, while my wife stayed here to take care of the kids. Thus I didn’t have a lot of time working on the new house but I did try my best to make it look nice as I loved living here. Not knowing some people expected us to have everything done right away just so they feel better looking out of their window, and complaints have been filed against us but not to the white people around with the same condition.

10/1/2019

Without any prior attempt to communicate with us, my wife received this demand letter from the largest law firm in Canada, retained by the developer, citing us for having commercial trailers on the property. In fact they were our holiday trailer and toy hauler for our off road vehicles. They did not even give us the option to have them screened like it says on the Restrictive Covenant quoted in the letter, just demanded us to have them removed by Oct 24^th.

10/2/2019

I was in China at the time and my wife, not knowing any better, tried to explain to the developer in an email that the trailers are not commercial but she needed me to be back in the country next April in order to move it. And they didn’t bother responding to her.

5/13/2020

We got another email from the developer telling us to move the trailers.

5/18/2020

I replied to the email trying to explain that the trailers are not commercial and I’m in the process of building a fence and a garage so they are screened in. I also explained that I have been away on family matters.

5/20/2020

They replied to the email saying they will inform the Board, which is the Home Owner’s Association ran by the developer and the residence have zero say in it, and let me know what they decide. And they didn’t.

7/14/2020

Our request for a pass to access the community lake was denied. They said it’s because we are in breach of the Restrictive Covenants but did not provide any document that states our access to the lake can be taken away for the accused “breach”. I read through all the Restrictive Covenants I could find on my land title and didn’t see anything related to that either.

I replied to that email informing them I no longer authorize them to take debit my account for the Home Owner’s Association fees that goes towards maintaining the community including the lake.

7/16/2020

A senior counsel from the law firm sent us an email saying despite the previous letters and communications, we remain in breach of the Restrictive Covenant. This time they attached a copy of that Restrictive Covenant but quoted different violations than before, as well as some new ones.

Here’s my response to their email and I will also list each of their accusation and explain separately below:

Here’s each of the items the lawyer cited us on their email:

“offending vehicles and lack of proper screening for those vehicles”:

I explained to them that I was in the process of building a garage and fence and the trailers will be screened in once that’s done. But it was in the middle of the pandemic so materials are hard to get and I was not comfortable with having all the different trade people coming into contact with our family either. Let alone that part of the world things people like us are responsible for what’s happening and there were Asians getting beat up for no reason every day. I did finish building the fence myself, with a bit of help from our neighbours on both side. However that wasn’t enough for them, or whoever don’t like us and kept complaining. But here are pictures of some of the trailers in the community that wasn’t “screened in” at the same time:

Baywest is a builder owned by the developer

“the long term stockpiling of soil in your back yard”

I needed to extend the sewer rough in at the back of my house to the garage location. So I first rented a compact excavator on June 9^th trying to do the work myself but the excavator couldn’t dig deep enough to reach the rough in.

So I had no choice but to hire a company to do the work with their bigger machine on Jun 16^th and lay the pipe in.

Then I had to wait for the county to schedule a time for inspection. After that I waited for the same crew to have an opening to come back and do the back fill on July 27^th.

I do not understand why I was being picked on for this. Maybe a white person can just snap their finger and magically have a crew show up the next day while everybody is in quarantine and want landscaping work done at their home?

Hired a crew to come in with a bigger excavator

2020/07/28 back filled and work completed

“incomplete improvements/construction materials stored in the front yard”

On June 1^st I purchased some composite deck boards to replace the treated wood deck on my front porch that is falling apart. They were on our front walk way as you can see here and not in anybody’s way:

By July 22^nd they had all been used and off the walk way.

And the whole deck was finished on Aug 30^th.

and here’s the before and after:

So the total duration of this work was completed in 91 days and according to the Restrictive Covenant I had 18 months to finish it. I guess in their standard against Chinese people 91 days is longer than 18 months so we were in violation.

“general unsightliness of the yard”

I haven’t had time to finish the landscaping on the backyard yet. But there is a lot right behind us with the same level of “unsightliness” that belongs to the developer. And I’ll show you a few more “unsightly” lots here:

This is the lot right behind us

I know we bought into a new community and don’t mind these but somehow the lot belongs to the Chinese family is not allowed to be “unsightly” …

I don’t know what they are trying to achieve by quoting this section,

But I do have a few pictures of the builders owned by the developer having dumpster sitting on the county road. I called the county and asked if that’s allowed, and they have since been moved to the inside of their lot so they were clearly in violation. But now they are also somehow allowed on the property without “proper screening”?

Might as well tag on whatever they can throw at the little guy for the sport:

And I do NOT have a corner lot. Here’s a google map screen shot of my house and I have neighbours on both sides:

This is also part of the same Restrictive Covenant:

How is a global pandemic not considered delayed by circumstances beyond my control?

And I did build the fence by myself with just a little help from the next door neighbous in throughout the summer

7/30/2020

The developer’s lawyer responded to say they didn’t find any other violations in the community and “Our client has lost confidence in your fulfilling your promises to rectify the breach”.

Please take some time to read the first paragraph of their email. How blind do you have to be to not see any other violations in the community, if not racist? And how is that different than a police officer on the side of the road giving out tickets to only yellow cars that are speeding, when being questioned about it, he goes: “Well I don’t see anyone else speeding but if you do let me know and I’d be happy to write them a ticket too”?

And for all the pictures I’ve shown above with other people’s trailer I purposely showed the screenshots of them so you can see they were taken both before and after that email.

I also put a sign on my front porch says “LAKE ACCESS FOR CHINESE KIDS” and they said we are not allowed to have signs in the community either. So here are some pictures of other people’s signs:

8/4/2020

They put a $60,000 CAVEAT on our land title for the previous and FUTURE legal costs. Here let me remind you that for something they could’ve just come to us directly at first, the developer retained the largest law firm in the country to send us a demand letter, then used a senior counsel who’s been practicing law for longer than I have been alive for all the communications, just to serve someone’s agenda for disliking us, because of no other reason that I can think of other than as a race.

8/10/2020

I was extremely upset and after a few drinks, I emailed them back, including every media outlet I could find, telling them if they keep pushing they’ll find me hung myself in front of the community center. I guess it’s true that media never respond to any suicidal events or our story is just not big enough. All I got in response is a welfare check from the police. I even showed the officer out of our bedroom window how the white family down the street has a trailer not screened in just like us. And this is exactly what the officer said: ”That’s insane, I cannot see the difference!” He encouraged me to talk to a lawyer before trying to cheer me up and left, promising he’d also talk to the developer’s people.

8/13/2020

The developer wanted us to meet with their HOA(home owner’s association) Board Director but set up the meeting at their big corporate office downtown. I told them I was not interested if they don’t even want to bother coming out here to see what it’s like. Then they offered to meet at a restaurant and have me bring them pictures of other people in violation. My whole point all along was not that they were not cited but I was being targeted. I decided to just hire a lawyer instead.

8/14/2020

We retrained a lawyer to file a civil suit against Qualico Development and the Harmony Home Owner’s Association for discrimination and other undue hardships. The Home Owner’s Association got hidden behind their insurance company who wouldn’t give us the time of the day and never responded to our requests to set up questioning. And the developer said it’s not their problem although all the emails were sent from their domain with Qualico Development in the signature and all the Home Owner’s Association people are their employees. So they throw their big name around when they advertise and stomp on the little guys but wants nothing to do with it when it’s time to take responsibility…

Sept, 2020

I started working with an engineer to design the garage.

Nov, 2020

I had to return home to tend family matters.

8/11/2021

As soon as travel restrictions loosen and I was vaccinated, I returned to Canada to start building the garage. On the same day I arrived in the country a new lawsuit was served to use for the same issues. So instead of facing our lawsuit and file a countersuit, they are again spending more money on lawyers.

Aug, 2021

I had lost my faith for continue to make a living in this country so I decided to downsize the garage and hired a new designer to re-design a smaller garage. He missed multiple deadlines and dragged the project out for 2 months.

Oct, 2021

I ended up working with a different designer and submitted the drawings for building permit.

Nov, 2021

The county replied on the application and we had to make a few changes to the drawings. Then they approved the foundation design but later found out that I’d need a 7 foot frost wall instead of the 4 foot one in the originally approved design. So we had to start over on the whole foundation design with the engineers, then decided to go with screw pile foundation instead, which changes all the quotes for excavation, concrete, footings. I’m writing all these just to explain why the process had been slow.

11/17/2021

I rented a bobcat and had a buddy over to help me operate it and move some soil and deck boards around in the back yard so there’s enough room to start excavation for the garage. We started after 10am and before noon there is already a guy from the county here wondering what I’m doing. “A neighbour complained” he said. “For what? Being Chinese?” and he didn’t answer. Then he looked at the foundation of the deck I was building, which I checked with the county more than once and they said I don’t need a permit as it’s under 2 feet high. He also said I should be ok because it’s under 2 feet and left.

11/19/2021

We got this letter in the mail, again from the county, citing us for “unpermitted deck/patio build”.

It’s referring to Section 90 and 92 of the Land Use Bylaw, and here’s what the bylaw says:

And my deck is 8 inch off the ground! So I phoned the guy, who told me he had zero knowledge of the county sending out somebody on the 17^th already. I had him read the bylaw section that he referred to himself, then told me he saw it somewhere that my deck is supposed to have a set back from the property line but he can not find where that is. He said he’d find it and come out to take a look in a couple days but I were to stop building it in the meantime.

11/21/2021

The guy showed up and gave me a copy of another bylaw that says decks need to be 1.2m from the fence and told me to stop the work and apply for a development permit. And if they decided that it’s not allowed I’d have to remove it.

And I later found out that the Land Use Bylaw he gave me is outdated as of Sep 8, 2020.

I phoned him back on the next day and he said he knows but the new bylaw is a copy and paste of that same section.

I then looked it up but this is what it says:

I called him again and he still says he’s not sure, he would ask his supervisor but I were to hang tight.

Then he finally called back and say I was ok to proceed.

11/30/2021

The developer sent us an email saying we need their approval for the deck and the garage

So by their requirement before you can do anything to YOUR property you need to submit a plot plan that the developers own engineering firm drawn up and a full set of construction plans:

I asked them to confirm that is what’s required for me to just build a deck

Then she replied to say a hand sketch would work and it’s all for the look of the community. However I failed to understand what a deck behind my house, 8” off the ground and 60ft from the back lane, is affecting the look of the community enough that you have to make me stop building to apply for this permit.

12/09/2021

They finally approved my deck but it’s already snowing lots and there’s no way to continue the work. And the irony is I wasn’t even trying hurry the deck build so we get to use it but just to have the materials out of the way so I can start the garage built, again for other peoples enjoyment…

On one of those days after I was made to stop building the deck, not having anything to live for.

Right Before Christmas

Our mortgage company called and said the Home Owner’s Association is moving to foreclose on our house for non-payment of the HOA fees. I said they haven’t been providing the service either. But they didn’t care. I called the lawyer HOA hired to ask for a copy of the agreement for the HOA fees and he wouldn’t give it to me. The copy I got from the builder only has the signature paged photocopied twiced but not the actual agreement. He said I should be able to get from from the land title office. We check and there isn’t one.

12/23/2021

I completely lost it and was screaming in the backyard. Police was called because someone was concerned about domestic violence. Funny how this whole thing was about getting my family what they deserved but people thinks I would want to hurt them. The officers cleared things up with my wife and offer to take me to the hospital to get help. I went with them but ended up getting detained in the psych ward over Christmas until Dec 27^th for suicidal thoughts. Well I guess my community sucks my skin colour sucks my whole life sucks but I’m not allow to end the suffering…