Calgarians forced to leave homes for Green Line construction say fight continues for fair compensation

The future of the Green Line is being called into question after the province said earlier this week it was pulling its portion of the funding. Regardless, Calgarians who had their homes taken from them for construction of the project continue to be at odds with the city.

Patrick Lindsay was a homeowner at the River Run townhomes, before he and his neighbours were kicked out in May, as the city expropriated their homes in Eau Claire to build the Green Line LRT.

He says the former owners have long-been fighting with the city for what they consider to be fair compensation.

“We tried to communicate in writing to the Green Line board, the Green Line Committee, our former councillor, our current councillor, the mayor — every member of council — and we have not had a grown-up conversation, not once,” he said. “It’s a government that just dictates to us and they don’t want to engage.

“It’s been really tough.”

Lindsay says hearing the project hit another road block came as no surprise.

“They’ve avoided the conversation because they probably know it’s a big number,” he said. “We just want to be compensated fairly so we can buy equivalent properties.”

Most of the building’s owners continue to work together to find a way to be adequately paid for their properties long after an inquiry hearing found the city had not communicated properly with the homeowners, leaving them in limbo.

“It’s been an absolute horror to deal with,” Lindsay said. “It started in August 2019, so we’re six years into this. We were paid an amount that is not enough to buy a reasonable replacement property and haven’t had a conversation that’s based on expropriation principles, which is important, because those exist to try and minimize how much this situation negatively impacts our quality of life.”

With this latest chapter unfolding, owners say the saga is far from over.

Gordon Holden, like Lindsay, continues to battle the city for reasonable pay.

“They’ve done it in the most hard-nosed way when it didn’t have to be like that,” he said. “The example is, that under the expropriation act, there are principals that are used to compensate the homeowner, the land owner when their property is taken away.

“For the longest time, even now, the city has refused to negotiate with us on all of those principals.”

Lindsay says it’s been years with very little progress

“It’s certainly been unfair. They’ve been unwilling to have a conversation with us regarding fair value. They have given us a report when they took our properties but that report doesn’t even consider that this is an expropriation, which is important, because if we want to move a block away and stay at a similar location, in the community we chose, we want to have a conversation based on that it’s an expropriation, that’s basically what we’re looking for,” he explained.

Holden lived in the building for nearly two decades and wants a just resolution.

“The closure that I would love to see from the city is for whoever that decision maker is in there to say ‘You know what, this isn’t right. We’re going to have a discussion with these good folks and make it right,'” he said. “It’s not too late, because the next thing that happens is the tribunal — hundreds of thousands and many more months of anguish from our side.

“In the end, we will get a proper result, whatever that is.”

The city declined to provide a comment to 660 NewsRadio Calgary on the situation, instead saying the Green Line team will be going to council on Sept. 17 when more information will be shared.