Quote:
Originally Posted by cornholio
Common sense would say that the city wouldn't be able to do that, CPR lawyers would be quick to take that to court and they would win compensation. If the city doesnt allow CPR to rezone the land and then because of that buys it for cheap only to rezone it and profit, especially after they even presented their case in court, they are going to be setting themselves up for a lawsuit. And CPR would gladly take that on as they still have huge land holdings in Vancouver and at some point in the future they will want to redevelop those too, and they wont want to go through all these problems again.
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CPR and City have already had this legal fight, and City won.
A nice synopsis by the Expropriation Law Centre:
http://www.expropriationlaw.ca/news/news.asp?id=69
The BC Court of Appeals ruling:
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/...0192.corr1.htm
(the Supreme court refused hear the appeal of this ruling, so it stands)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain
As long as CPR is compensated for the land in it's existing condition and zoning, they have no grounds to sue (although we all know they'll try). What City may or may not do with the lands after buying them from CPR can't be challenged by CPR after the sale is finalized.
In a similar situation, I don't hear former owners of the SEFC (Olympic Village) lands coming forward and complaining that their industrial lands bought by the City, and now redeveloped into housing, are now more valuable so therefore because they are the former owners they should get more compensation due to the increased value of their former land.
What's to stop CPR from now claiming they need more compensation for the sale of their old railway yards on False Creek? The BC Gov't bought (some say expropriated) the land from CPR and built BC Place and later Expo 86, then resold the land to Concord for condos, and Concord has made a handsome profit.