Vancouver moves to expropriate hotels closed over safety fears

VANCOUVER — Vancouver has launched itself into new territory in dealing with what its deputy manager calls a “frustrating” situation involving two hotels that have been home to some of the city’s most vulnerable people.

After failed attempts to compel the owners of two decaying hotels in the Downtown Eastside to make improvements that would bring them up to code, the city announced Monday it had filed a notice of expropriation for the Balmoral and Regent hotels.

The hotels are closed because of structural and safety concerns, the city said in a statement. More than 300 of the city’s lowestincome tenants needed to be relocated when they were shut down.

Deputy city manager Paul Mochrie said it’s the first time the city has pursued expropriation with the purpose of providing public housing.

“What we’ve got now is two buildings that are empty with no conceivable prospect that they would be restored to a point where they can be used as housing. We’ve got a city with a housing crisis,” he said in an interview.

“So now city council has authorized the next step, which is a pretty extraordinary one, to pursue expropriation of those two properties.”

“We certainly have been looking at how other jurisdictions manage their problem buildings, but in this case, this action was taken not necessarily based on what other people have done or other cities have done, but really where our council felt it needs to go with respect to securing property for very desperately needed housing,” Mochrie said.

No one from the Sahota family, which owns the two properties, was immediately available for comment and the family’s lawyer, Michael Katzalay, said he hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss the matter with them.

The Balmoral and Regent hotels are known as single-room occupancy buildings, or SROs. It’s a model of housing that sprang up in Vancouver as transient housing for loggers and fishermen, but has since become what Mochrie said is an important stock of lowincome housing.

The city said it made an offer to the owners to purchase both hotels for a value based on independent appraisals but the offer was rejected

The owners now have 30 days to ask for an inquiry before Vancouver council goes ahead with the expropriation.