City needs to buy land back for BRT expansion

WINNIPEG — City hall is buying up properties and land as they move into the next phase of the BRT expansion. Part of that land is also going towards building a huge new retention pond.

The multi-million dollar deal is frustrating some councillors because the city owned some of that Fort Garry Land just a few years ago, but traded it away to a private developer.

The city was calling it a good deal back in 2009. It traded the 23-hectare parcel called The Parker Lands for 3-hectares of land at the former Fort Rouge Yards. Now, the city needs that land back.

The deal stirred up controversy at city hall at the time, and back then officials determined both pieces of land were valued at a million dollars.  An audit in 2014 showed that claim to be false, now the city has to expropriate nearly 10-hectares of land they owned just six years ago.

“I’m never pleased when the outcome at the end of the day regardless of whatever reasons that we had land that we sold for a certain price and now we have to buy that back again,” said Councillor John Orlikow. “If it was the same price, who cares, but odds are it won’t be the same price and that causes me a problem because the tax payers are losing money.”

The deal doesn’t sit well with tax payers either.

“That’s kind of a shady sounding deal, it’s too bad,” said Jade Karsin, a resident in the area.  “It’s more expense when it could’ve been avoided in the first place with proper planning and foresight.”

Most of the land the city requires is for a retention pond, to alleviate basement flooding in adjacent neighbourhoods. Something Orlikow said water and waste management didn’t foresee as a necessity back when the land was traded.

“Water and waste did look at it, and determined there was no need for a pond,” said Orlikow.

The retention pond will be around 8 hectares in total. Construction for the BRT expansion is slated to start by 2016.