The Gibsons Alliance of Business and Community (GABC) has filed a new court action against the Town of Gibsons.
The B.C. Supreme Court petition, filed Oct. 13, asks for an injunction against the Town issuing any development permits to the company behind the George Hotel and Residences project and a similar injunction against the developer to block them from acting on three permits issued in early August.
The suit also claims those permits should be quashed because the Town didn’t follow the procedures set out in section 557(2) of the Local Government Act. It also challenges whether a July 12 letter from the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) indicating support of a plan to clean up the development site should have been treated as formal approval of that plan.
The arguments are similar to those made by GABC and Gibsons resident Marcia Timbres in a submission to the Environmental Appeal Board and an Aug. 28 application to the court to overturn an earlier development permit.
Mayor Wayne Rowe told Coast Reporter the Town was only served with the new court action late last week. It has yet to respond, but Rowe said he expects the Town’s legal counsel to highlight similar issues as they did in the response to the Aug. 28 petition.
In that case, Town lawyers said the July 12 MOE letter does satisfy the requirements of the Local Government Act and the environmental regulations for contaminated sites. It also claims GBAC and Timbres acknowledged that in their case before the Environmental Appeal Board. “It is an abuse of process for the petitioner to plead in this petition that section 557(2) has not been satisfied when taking the contradictory position before the Environmental Appeal Board.”
Rowe said the legal battles are frustrating.
“I certainly don’t criticize the right to citizens who want to legally challenge decisions made by government. In this particular case it is frustrating because, whether it was expressly stated or not, the 2014 election here in Gibsons was largely a referendum on the George Hotel,” Rowe said.
“It was followed by a comprehensive public hearing process, which gave everyone who wanted to an opportunity to express their views… We’ve been through countless expert reports, had those reports peer reviewed by our own experts. For a town this size, the magnitude of this application and process has been very challenging.”
Rowe said as well as the applications to the B.C. Supreme Court and the Environmental Appeal Board, the Town has also had to defend itself against complaints to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the ombudsperson, privacy commissioner, and some of the professional bodies Town staff belong to. “Every complaint has been met, and disallowed… We’ll continue to follow the processes that we have to.”
Neither of the recent court actions has gone before a judge, and the Environmental Appeal Board is still considering whether to hear the appeal.
A report from Town staff on the accumulating legal costs related to the George approvals is expected in November. The Town has already said it spent more than $80,000 to defend itself against just one Human Rights Tribunal complaint.
