Six property owners have filed a petition in B.C. Supreme court to quash a rental-only zone bylaw.
In the petition filed at B.C. Supreme Court, the six rental owners claim that the city acted in bad faith because of a lack of reasonable consultation, inaccurate and false statements in public notices and neglect of public concerns.
The document also claims the city received plenty of requests to stall the decision but that those requests went unanswered.
The Urban Development Institute also proposed to work with the city to come up with a solution, but that was rejected.
New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote said he anticipated challenges to the new bylaw.
“The city did move very quickly, and it did so to prevent a very quick mass eviction of those buildings,” the mayor said.
Cote said this was a good enough reason to rush the process.
“The work we did was very important, one of many policy actions to try and limit renovictions in our community. That doesn’t close the door to us having some good conversations about other policy options in helping us achieve the same community benefit,” he added.
The city says tenants of 315 units have been forced out over the past couple of years.
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