Landowner asks Central Saanich to reconsider expropriation

The owners of property being expropriated by the District of Central Saanich are urging the municipality to reconsider.

Park Place Seniors Living has owned the 0.9-hectare parcel of land on Hovey Road since 2006 with the intention of developing long-term care facilities.

The land, across the street from Centennial Park, was identified years ago by the Capital Health Region, now Island Health, as a desirable location for a long-term care facility, but the health authority didn’t have the money to purchase the land when it was for sale in 2006, said Lina Saba, senior director of brand communications and marketing at Park Place Seniors Living.

The company bought the land along with an adjacent parcel, totalling two hectares, and has been holding them for the development of a long-term facility for nearly two decades.

Park Place has been waiting for Island Health to issue a request for proposals for a provider to build and operate a long-term care facility. “We’re just waiting for Island Health to come forward to say we’re looking to build and then we would respond to it with the land that we have there,” Saba said.

But the district announced this week it had started the process to expropriate the land to redevelop municipal facilities in need of an upgrade. Expropriation is a legal process that allows governments to acquire privately owned land to build or make necessary changes to infrastructure. The landowner is paid fair market value as determined by an independent third-party appraiser.

The district’s appraised value of the land is $3.1 million.

“It’s mostly disappointing more than anything else, just because there’s a very obvious need for care,” Saba said.

About 11 per cent of the Island’s population is over 75, and that figure is expected to reach 24 per cent by 2041, meaning nearly 200,000 Island residents will be over 75, she said.

The need for long-term care on the Island is “astronomically high,” with a current average waiting time of 177 days for a long-term care bed, Saba said.

The company rejected two offers by the district to purchase the two lots and a third offer to purchase the single lot now being expropriated, she said.

It’s now asking the district to reconsider the decision to expropriate the land.

A spokesperson for the District of Central Saanich said the district was unable to comment Friday as it had not seen a statement put out by the company.

Since 2006, Central Saanich has been exploring the feasibility of redeveloping its municipal hall, fire station and police station.