A Yaletown condo strata that has been wrangling with the CEO of Concord Pacific over who gets to use a massive amenity space is now petitioning the Supreme Court of B.C. for an order.
It’s the latest move is a complicated saga that touches on municipal and provincial regulations and pits strata owners of expensive condos against an influential developer.
Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion delivered straight to your inbox at 7 a.m., Monday to Friday.
Thanks for signing up!
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of Sunrise presented by Vancouver Sun will soon be in your inbox.
The strata at The Erickson building on northern False Creek’s seawall is asking the court to order the registrar of land titles in B.C. to fix “an error” in its filed strata plans that designates an area on the second floor for the sole use of the building’s penthouse owner, who is Concord’s CEO, Terry Hui.
It had already tried turning to the City of Vancouver for support in getting access to the 6,000-square-foot space.
In late 2005, Concord submitted an application for a development permit for The Erickson, which showed the space as a common amenity area. It requested that three areas, including the second floor space, which totalled over 10,000-square-feet, be excluded from the calculation of the building’s floor space ratio on the basis that these would be areas for the enjoyment of all residents and tenants, according to the petition.
Concord started selling strata lots and Hui bought the penthouse in 2005.
When the strata plan was later filed with the land title office after the building was completed in 2010, the second floor space was marked for the exclusive use of the penthouse owner, who has always been Hui.
The City attempted in late 2021 to order Concord and Hui to comply with its development permit and give residents access to the space.
Concord replied by trying, unsuccessfully, to apply to the City to change the development permit.
In 2022, Hui offered the residents access to the area in return for usage fees. They declined, communicating through their lawyer that the suggestion they would have to pay to use that common space was “quite offensive.”
This new petition, filed in mid-November, cites a 2019 B.C. Supreme court ruling in another case rectifying an error in a strata plan that had been filed with the land titles office.
That case was between Darren Entwistle, the president and CEO of Telus, his wife, Fiona Entwistle, and the strata at Telus Garden Residences, a high-rise condo tower connected to a mixed-use development in downtown Vancouver.
When the Entwistles bought two penthouse condo units, the sale came with a rooftop deck on a part of the roof for their exclusive use. But the strata plan filed by the Telus joint-venture partner and developer, Westbank, mistakenly did not show that the deck and a portion of the roof that is used to access it are part of one of the condo units.
Initially, the registrar refused to recognize the authority of the court to order corrections in a filed strata plan, but the court maintained its position.
The petition said that the Entwistle case shows that the court has “a broad power to remedy errors and inequities.”
However, it also noted that according to a much older case from the early 1960s, the registrar can’t correct errors if they are contested.
This current petition by the Erickson strata said that in 2019, the registrar of land titles, Larry Blaschuk, found that “the filed and registered strata plan accurately reflected the intent of the developer.”
The City of Vancouver said in a statement that it will not be commenting. “This is a private dispute between the strata and the developer that is before the courts, the City has no involvement.”
The strata said it had been notified by the registrar that its office will not be replying.
The lawyer for the strata said it has not yet received response materials from Hui or anyone else, but expected to do so soon.
jlee-young@postmedia.com
