Plight of Pinecrest Townhomes residents noted by Prince Rupert Council Monday

The fate of the residents of the Pinecrest Townhomes in Prince Rupert
made for a few minutes of discussion at Monday's Council Session

At the tail end of Monday's City Council session, a few of the Council membership offered up a fair bit of empathy, but little in the way of concrete suggestions when it came towards help on the theme of the recent notices of evictions for residents of the Pinecrest Townhomes.

As we noted last week, the residents of the east side of the city were advised of the pending renovations to the sprawling collection of homes off of Immanuel Street, with eviction notices served on the residents in February.

Monday night, Councillor Nick Adey made mention of their situation, while at the same time praising the efforts of Paul Legace from the Unemployed Action Centre, who has become the lead advocated for those facing eviction.

"I just wanted to comment on the meeting that was put together for the people that were looking at being renovicted from the Pinecrest buildings.  

I wanted to comment on first of all what an emotional meeting it was and it really brought home to me at least, that some of the decisions that get made that seem cut and dried on paper simple, sometimes involve people's lives.

Listening to the emotional comments of the people there and the way in which they felt that they were being affected was very moving. 

I also want to acknowledge Paul Legace for taking on the task of pulling that together and providing the information to do them that he did. And I'm hopeful that, that meeting of minds will lead to hopefully some ways to make that situation easier for those residents."

Prince Rupert Mayor Lee Brain also noted that he and Councillor Barry Cunningham were in attendance at that tenants meeting, the Mayor observing that it was the hardest thing he's had to do as Mayor since taking office over five and half years ago.

"We do have a housing issue here in the community, there's no doubt about it and we're going to be working around the clock to help be as supportive as possible.

The good news is, that the developer has worked with Paul and they've been able to come up with four requests and the developer is going to meet all four of those requests, including staggering the renovictions so that there is not as big of an impact to the community. 

As well as a variety of other packages that they're going to give to the tenants, so they've really come in, in a big way to help to lesson the impact of these renovatons"

The Mayors notes on the work of Mr. Legace towards assisting the tenants was previously relayed earlier in the day by North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice who updated the community through her Facebook page.

She also noted that the tenants of the Pinecrest Homes have been invited to a meeting scheduled for tonight March11th at 5PM at the Fisherman's Hall, where more background on the discussions with the owners/developers will be reviewed.

You can review their discussion on the Pinecrest Townhomes situation from the City's video archive starting at the 1 hour mark.



Further background on housing issues in Prince Rupert can be explored from our Housing archive page here.

A wider overview of Monday's Council session can be found from our Council Timeline Feature.

Other notes of interest on Council Discussion themes can be reviewed from our Council Discussion archive.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.