COMMUNITY TAKES ON GROW-OPS

VANCOUVER-- A Chilliwack gated community is looking to be the first in
Canada to "pot-proof" its homes.

The scheme at Promontory Park will require buyers to forfeit their homes if
they're ever used for a marijuana-grow operation.

Property developer Bill Coughlin said people in the Fraser Valley have
all-too-often bought their dream home, only to have a nearby grow-op turn
it into a nightmare. "The community is being held hostage to criminal
activity," said Coughlin Monday.

"Communities are being held hostage by the environment that's created by
having illegal grow-ops and with the threat that someone steals the crop,
with guns blazing and people getting shot, right next door," said Coughlin,
who said living next door to a grow-op in the Fraser Valley immediately
lops property values by $50,000.

Grow-ops have more than quadrupled since the late 1990s and Chilliwack had
more than 200 in 2003.

Coughlin says owners at the new gated community will have to sign a
"Not-In-Our-Neighbourhood" clause, agreeing to forfeit their homes to the
housing council if their home is ever used for a confirmed marijuana grow-op.

"The question will always be 'is it legally enforceable?'," he said.

"At this point we don't have an ironclad covenant that is going to 100 per
cent be guaranteed to stand up to challenges."

Other anti-pot measures in the housing complex are the centralizing of
hydro meters so they can be monitored by the local housing council. The
complex will also ban basement suites and foil-covered windows. And a
24-hour camera will take photos of visitors, which would then be forwarded
to the RCMP.