City facing legal fight over trailer park evictions
Senior seeking delay to planned eviction from his mobile home
Midfield Mobile Home Park residents are taking a last-ditch legal stand to block the city’s efforts to evict them by month’s end.
Rudy Prediger, a 47-year resident of the park who refuses to budge in the face of a Sept. 30 deadline, hired a lawyer who will head to Court of Queen’s Bench on Monday to seek a delay of the eviction or, should that fail, a better compensation deal.
“I’m going to take this all the way until they keep their promise,” said Prediger, 82, referring to a sincerevoked city vow to relocate the northeast neighbourhood to the city’s southeast.
“The mayor says I want a sweetheart deal but I don’t. I’m fighting for the people here.”
He said anyone who remains at the park and even those who have left can be part of the legal action.
Lawyer Mathew Farrell said he is challenging the city’s rationale — that the park’s water infrastructure is crumbling — to justify the eviction years in the making.
“They’re not going to be installing or repairing or improving the system,” said Farrell, who is also seeking a judicial review of the eviction.
City officials, including Mayor Naheed Nenshi, have said the city has no plans for developing the site on 16th Avenue N.E. near Deerfoot Trail, which also invalidates the eviction order, he said.
“If nothing’s going to happen there for five, 10, 15 years, you can’t evict people until then,” he said.
“You don’t kick somebody out of your home unless you have a good reason.”
Prediger said about 50 homeowners in the 183-lot neighbourhood remain, though Nenshi says there are only about 30, with fewer than 10 resisters.
They’ve been offered a $10,000 payment and as much as an additional $10,000 to cover moving costs, but some, like Prediger, say they have nowhere to take their mobile homes and are being given a pittance for them.
“If they bring me a $10,000 cheque, I’ll burn it,” Prediger said. “They’re trying to throw us out of here and give us 10 cents on the dollar.”
On Tuesday, Nenshi said his previous election campaigns pushed for a better ending to the Midfield saga but insisted the city is now delivering the best possible deal to residents.
“We’re not going to recreate the Midfield community, I wish we could, but our goal is to ensure everyone has a safe place to go,” he said, adding no one will be forcibly removed at month’s end.
“Nobody’s getting pulled out of their homes Sept. 30, there’ll be no bulldozers or crowbars.”
He said city officials will continue to work for solutions with remaining residents.
Mayoral candidate Bill Smith said he applauds the legal action, adding it’s a sad indictment of Nenshi that the Midfield situation has reached this point.
“The city has treated these people horribly and the mayor’s the one who could have turned this around but he’s done nothing,” he said. “Is that how Calgarians treat people?”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help finance the legal battle.
I’m going to take this all the way until they keep their promise. The mayor says I want a sweetheart deal but I don’t. I’m fighting for the people here.