A BNSF Railways train passes a housing subdivision under construction on Northwest 69th Street along Vancouver Lake. BNSF is suing Vancouver Cove, an Oregon-based land developer, accusing the company of encroaching on its operating corridor, tearing down a fence and doing some construction work. (Amanda Cowan/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
BNSF Railway is suing an Oregon-based property developer, claiming the company encroached on its operating corridor while building a subdivision along Vancouver Lake.
Vancouver Cove, an Oregon-based housing developer, is building a subdivision called The Cove at Vancouver Lake along the shore of a Vancouver Lake inlet. The site abuts BNSF tracks near Northwest Lakeshore Avenue.
According to a Clark County staff report filed in January, the subdivision includes 37 lots.
The lawsuit was filed April 13 in Clark County Superior Court. BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas declined to comment. Joseph Vance, attorney for Vancouver Cove, said he wasn’t authorized to comment on the case.
According to court documents, BNSF alleges Vancouver Cove incorrectly claims it owns a stretch of land that sits in the BNSF operating corridor, tore down a portion of its fence and did some construction work on the property. The railroad is asking for a court to assert BNSF’s ownership over the property and order Vancouver Cove to repair any damage to its property and also pay triple damages for trespassing on the corridor, plus payment of its attorney fees, investigative costs and other expenses.
In its complaint, BNSF said that through its predecessor, the Portland and Puget Sound Rail Road Co., it has owned 100 feet of property on either side of its main tracks since 1890. It also claims that last year Vancouver Cove tried more than once to purchase a roughly 4,800-square-foot western strip of BNSF’s operating corridor so it could meet Clark County’s minimum lot size requirements and thus build more houses in the proposed subdivision. The railroad refused, yet the “defendant now wrongfully asserts that it owns the same portion of the BNSF Operating Corridor that it earlier sought to purchase from BNSF.”
BNSF maintains it owns land 50 feet on either side of the center line of its mainline track and has kept its property fenced along the edges. Years later, the company built a second rail line on the east side of its existing track. It alleges Vancouver Cove is basing its claim of ownership on an erroneous land survey that showed the center line of BNSF’s operating corridor shifted to the east when it built the new track.
In January, Vancouver Cove filed documents with the county that adopted their view of the corridor and didn’t reflect a dispute over the property’s true location.
BNSF claims crew working for Vancouver Cove tore down its fence in March. Days later, the railroad sent Vancouver Cove a cease-and-desist letter.
The lawsuit claims that a Vancouver Cove representative threatened to sue BNSF unless the railroad “capitulated to defendant’s erroneous boundary line interpretation.”
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