Owners protest expropriations caused by sale of too much stadium land

WINNIPEG – City staff are pushing council to go ahead with unpopular expropriations near Polo Park after the property department sold too much of the former CanadInns Stadium land to allow planned road improvements.

“The city inadvertently sold more property than it ought to have sold,” an inquiry into the expropriation was told.

The city’s standing policy committee on property and development is being asked Tuesday to approve the expropriation of several properties despite objections by landowners and despite an inquiry report that suggests changes. The inquiry was held to look into the property owners’ objections and its report is included in the property and development committee’s agenda.

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The inquiry was told the city accidentally sold parts of the stadium property it needed for improvements to St. Matthews Avenue. While the city negotiated the repurchase of some of the stadium land, it also created a new plan for St. Matthews Street that requires the expropriations now proposed.

“The initial plans, which would have used land acquired from CN Rail, were not possible due to the accidental selling of lands formerly of the Winnipeg CanadInns Stadium site,” the inquiry report states. “The city negotiated with the purchasers of the Winnipeg CanadInns Stadium site but was unable to negotiate all the lands necessary to coincide with the initial plans for the St. Matthews extension.”

Mark Newman, a lawyer representing property owners Oxbow Holdings, St. James Industrial Park and St. James Place Warehouse, which are all subject to the expropriations, asked during the inquiry why the city didn’t expropriate more stadium land so it could complete the original plans for St. Matthews Avenue.

“The reply was to the effect that it would not have been the right thing to do,” the inquiry report states.

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