Metro Vancouver, Belcarra Regional Park cabin residents head to court
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 00:17:05 +0000
Residents of a handful of cabins in Belcarra Regional Park will be in B.C. Supreme Court this week to fight for the right to continue living in their homes.
The Metro Vancouver Regional District, which owns and operates the park, gave notice in March 2018 that it was ending the tenancy of those renting the cabins that are nestled in the woods along the shoreline south of the park’s picnic area, main beach and pier.
The residents appealed the notice, which was overturned in February by an arbitrator with the Residential Tenancy Branch.
The arbitrator said that because Metro hadn’t, at the time, established a use for one of the cabins, or obtained permits to convert the others from residential rental units to interpretive landscape displays, it couldn’t end the residents’ tenancy.
After that decision, the regional district, which is looking to phase out residences in all of its parks, applied for a judicial review.
According to the petition it filed to the court, Metro is hoping the court will set aside the branch’s decision and allow the evictions to stand or send the matter back to the branch for reconsideration by a different arbitrator.
“We say, of course, the decision was very reasonable and well within the scope of the arbitrator’s permissible discretion, and was in fact the right, correct decision because it doesn’t make sense in a housing crisis to evict anybody when you don’t know what you’re going to do with the unit that they’re being evicted from or you’re just going to leave it empty,” said Oliver Pulleyblank, the lawyer representing the Belcarra South Preservation Society.
Metro’s board of directors has approved a plan to open the Belcarra South area for public use, which will involve repairing the seven cabins — six of which are occupied — and historic Bole House, and keeping them empty for viewing.
Residents proposed allowing the public into the area while still allowing residents to stay in the cabins and act as interpretive guides, but that idea wasn’t considered.
“Their concern … is that they’re being kicked out when there isn’t a plan for what’s going to happen, and the plan of just leaving them empty so people can look at them is half-baked at best, and then they’re being forced out of their homes for no good reason,” said Pulleyblank.
Pulleyblank noted that the rental market in the Metro area remains tight, and it will be difficult for the cabins’ residents, many of whom have been there “a very long time,” to find accommodations.
Altogether, the residents of the six cabins pay just over $3,100 per month, or about $525 each, and have month-to-month rental agreements with Metro. The average rental rate for a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver is $2,100 per month, according to PadMapper.
Earlier this year a spokesperson for Metro, which declined to comment on the upcoming hearing, said the arbitrator’s decision has delayed the regional district’s work in Belcarra South, but it would continue planning for the area.
The case is expected to be in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver on Oct. 30 and 31.