Vancouver council set to vote on expropriating notorious DTES hotels
Credit to Author: John Mackie| Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:48:06 +0000
The City of Vancouver wants to expropriate two notorious Downtown Eastside hotels for a dollar each.
The Balmoral is at 159 East Hastings St., and has an assessed value of $3,239,300. The Regent is across the street at 160 East Hastings, and has an assessed value of $3,168,100. But the city argues that the buildings are in such rough shape that they have a negative value.
A report from CWPC property consultants says both properties face “significant renovation and removal-of-hazardous-materials costs,” which produces a negative value of minus $22,960,000 for the Balmoral and minus $17,840,000 for the Regent.
The report also argues the buildings have a negative value if only demolition costs are considered: “Land value less demolition and hazardous-material-removal-costs” results in a negative value of minus $240,000 for the Balmoral and minus $100,000 for the Regent.
The proposal to expropriate the hotels will be discussed at Vancouver city council Nov. 6. And DTES activist Wendy Pedersen plans to be there.
“I think this is a great day for the Downtown Eastside,” said Pedersen. “If city council votes in favour of (paying a) dollar for the Regent and a dollar for the Balmoral, they’re going to send the best possible message to slumlords across this city: if they don’t keep their properties up, they risk losing them.”
The Balmoral Hotel, in the 100-block of Hastings Street, Thursday, October 31, 2019.
The city wouldn’t comment on the staff report recommending expropriation because it hadn’t been discussed by council. Even Coun. Jean Swanson, a longtime anti-poverty crusader, declined to comment.
The report also recommends that the city pay $1,000 for the lease to the Regent’s pub, and recommends council put up $700,000 to “secure” the buildings “through additional building hardware, security and on-site and mobile patrols.”
Both hotels are owned by the Sahota family and were closed after the city declared them unsafe for occupancy. The Balmoral was closed June 12, 2017, while the Regent was shuttered June 28, 2018.
The buildings had racked up numerous bylaw violations over the years. When the Regent was closed former mayor Gregor Robertson said it had been the subject of more than 1,000 outstanding bylaw violations.
Jack Gates in his room at the Regent in 2016.
Jack Gates lived in the Regent for three years.
“The conditions were terrible,” he said. “The floors were rotting away. Sometimes we would go for weeks without an elevator (and) we would have to use the stairs. The electricity and that would go on-and-off. Heat and hot water in most of the rooms did not work. Doors were missing. And there was a lot of violence.”
Gates tried to launch a class-action lawsuit against the Sahotas, but it was rejected by the B.C. Court of Appeal last October.
About 300 people were displaced when the two hotels were closed, and renovating the two buildings so they could reopen relatively quickly would help with Vancouver’s homeless problem. The Regent is eight storeys and contains 161 units, while the Balmoral is nine storeys and has 171 units.
The Balmoral was built in 1911-12 and the Regent in 1913, and both have significant heritage value; they’re on the city’s heritage register and on the federal list of Canada’s Historic Places.
But Gates said the buildings evoke such bad feelings that he’d like to see them replaced.
“I think they should demolish the buildings, because they’re an eyesore to the community,” he said. “There’s been nothing but hurt and sorrow in both those buildings.”
The Regent Hotel at 160 East Hastings St., a short walk from the Carnegie Centre.
Pedersen thinks the city and B.C. Housing should consult with the community about what to do with the buildings.
“I think it’s really important to consult with Aboriginal women in the community about that,” she said. “Because women have lost their lives in those buildings, and their memories are cherished.”
That said, Pedersen said “there are Indigenous women in the community that have come to talk to me about just getting those rooms open, because they have family members that are homeless. So if the community wants to go the fast route and renovate those rooms and get them open, I’d support that.”
The Balmoral and Regent hotels are situated across the 100-block of Hastings Street from each other.
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