City files expropriation notice for Balmoral, Regent hotels
Tenants hail move as victory — and a warning to ‘slumlords across Vancouver’
The City of Vancouver has moved to wrest ownership of a pair of decrepit Downtown Eastside hotels from the Sahota family.
City staff filed an expropriation notice last week that would shift ownership of the Regent and Balmoral single-room-occupancy hotels to the municipality.
Former residents like Jack Gates and community advocates, who for years had pressed the city to step in, called it a victory and a warning to other slum landlords.
“I spent four-and-a-half years in the Regent hoping that the Sahotas would work on the building or something, but they never did, so we just kept pushing,” Gates said shortly after he learned of the notice.
“It’s a little bit late, but you know what, at least now we’ve got something going.”
More than 300 low-income tenants had to be moved after the city shut down the Regent last month and the Balmoral last year.
Gates said that he was the last resident to leave the Regent, having stayed on to make sure all of the building’s other tenants received fair compensation and a new place to live. He said his new home is a “very nice place.”
Decades of “underinvestment and mismanagement” by the owners had caused structural and safety concerns in the hotels, according to the city.
Paul Mochrie, the deputy city manager, called the expropriation bid an extraordinary step.
“I think what we’ve seen in the past year, since the closure of the Balmoral, is the lack of any real progress on remediation of that building, so that’s certainly a factor here. And then over the same year, dealing with the circumstances at the Regent,” he said.
“We were hopeful that we would start to see some different behaviour on the part of the owners …”
The Sahotas did not return a request for comment and the family’s lawyer, Michael Katzalay, said he hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss the matter with them.
City staff had previously made an offer to buy the buildings from the Sahota family, but the family did not respond, Mochrie said. He declined to say how much the city had offered.
The Balmoral, at 159 Hastings Street East, was assessed at being worth nearly $2.7 million as of July 1, 2017, and the Regent, at 160 Hastings St. E, was assessed at nearly $12.2 million. As of that assessment date, the Balmoral had been shuttered, but the Regent had not.
The expropriation process could take months and may not be finished before the municipal election, Mochrie said.
The Sahotas now have about a month-and-a-half to request an inquiry that would be led by an officer appointed by the attorney general. At the conclusion of that inquiry, or if none is requested, city staff could be directed by council to purchase the buildings for a value that is based on independent appraisals, according to the city. The owners would then need to go to court to seek any additional payout.
Mochrie said the appraised value would be “based on the current state of the buildings,” but said the methodology may not be the same as what B.C. Assessment uses. The cash to buy the properties would come from capital funds earmarked for the purchase of land to provide for housing, he said.
Downtown Eastside housing advocate Wendy Pedersen welcomed the expropriation bid but said it should have come years ago.
“This is a victory for the tenants and advocates who worked for the last three years and basically put their lives on the line … Tenants are in danger if they make complaints. They get evicted, they get threatened,” she said.
“This sends a notice to slumlords across Vancouver that if tenants decide to stand up to them they can win.”
Pedersen said she hoped to see the buildings become 100 per cent public housing.
Postmedia investigated the plight of Regent Hotel tenants two years ago and last year exposed the horrific conditions faced by tenants in the Balmoral Hotel.
When the city shut down the Regent Hotel last month, Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a statement that it had been the subject of more than 1,000 outstanding bylaw violations.
There are over 400 charges now before the courts that will be adjudicated starting in October, Mochrie said.
Last year, the city filed 60 charges alleging bylaw infractions in relation to the Balmoral Hotel over breaches it said included failure to maintain walls, ceilings and floors to adequate standards and unacceptable plumbing facilities.