Trailer-park residents fear condo development will force them out
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/02/2012 (5047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
WINNIPEG – More than two dozen families living in a trailer park just southeast of the city could be forced out of their homes because the landowners are planning a condo development on the site.
Marc Gagnon, 26, lives in a three-bedroom trailer in the 2.7-hectare Lorette trailer park, owned by the Tacium Vincent Orlikow law firm.
He said members of the community found a notice a week ago from the RM of Taché posted on a bulletin board. It noted plans to subdivide the trailer park into a condominium development with 25 separate units with two common areas.
Gagnon fears he and his neighbours will be forced out, although he doesn’t know when.
“They are trying to evict us all,” said Gagnon. “I’ll have to leave my trailer and move back into my parents’ basement.
“Legally, what the condo owners are doing isn’t wrong, it’s a question of morals.”
Gagnon, who has grown up in the trailer park, said the community means everything to him.
“If we just sit back and do nothing, we’re just going to lose everything,” Gagnon said. “We have to fight back somehow.”
Gagnon has already gathered 100 signatures on a petition, which he’ll present to the RM council Thursday night in Lorette, located about 30 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg.
Packing up and leaving simply isn’t an option, he said, adding it could cost up to $7,000 to move his trailer. He recently renovated, adding a new metal roof, porch and ceramic tile.
But David Vincent, a lawyer with Tacium Vincent Orlikow, said the owners’ intention isn’t to force people out. “I don’t believe that’s the case at all,” he said.
Vincent said what happens to the families will, ultimately, be decided by the Residential Tenancies Branch of Manitoba.
“They are quite familiar (with) when an apartment block is converted into a condominium, but I think we are in a grey area on what happens here,” he said.
The Residential Tenancies Branch of Manitoba declined to comment.
Vincent said by subdividing the land, it gives renters the option of owning their lot, instead.
William Danylchuk, mayor of the RM of Taché, said until council hears Thursday from both sides, nothing has been decided. But he conceded if families have to relocate, “that would be a disaster.”
Danylchuk said the trailer park and surrounding area is becoming more popular with developers because it’s been kept in pristine condition and it has a rural feel yet it remains close to the centre of Lorette.
Gagnon said residents’ only hope might be to collectively purchase the land from the law firm at a “reasonable price.”
andrew.nguyen@freepress.mb.ca