A little more than a year ago, Tom Green stood on the front steps of his home in the Riverside Trailer Park in Brackendale, unsure of what the future would hold. A year later, standing on those same steps, some things are still unclear, but what he knows for sure is that he and his neighbours have to move.
“There’s a weird reality,” he said, looking out at the piles of items around his trailer waiting to be packed up: chairs, stacks of siding and roofing.
“Moving is one thing, moving like this is something else.”
On Sept. 7, 2016, the Squamish Nation gave Green and 18 other homeowners on Lots 6 and 7 of Seaichem Reserve in the trailer park one year to move.
This portion of the park, which opened in the 1960s, has to close due in part to “health and safety concerns,” according to the Nation.
To date, six of the 19 tenants have left the park, according to Chris Lewis, Squamish Nation councillor.
Green and all but two of the trailer owners have agreed to leave by the deadline of Sept. 30. Green and a few of the other remaining owners hope to move to a new spot within Squamish.
The owners of the Spiral Mobile Home Park, also in Brackendale, have agreed to try and expand to take some of the Riverside tenants.
“The onsite manager already met the Riverside Park applicants and has prepared all documents for these people to move when the sites are completed,” Brian Frid, Spiral manager, told The Chief. An engineer has been hired to help with the expansion.
The next step is for Spiral to apply for a building permit from the District of Squamish. When the building permit is approved, moving schedules will be confirmed, Frid said.
A spokesperson for the District said at the end of last week that if a building permit application was received in the relatively near future, staff would be able to process it by Sept. 30.
There is no chance the Squamish Nation will grant any extensions to the deadline for any of the residents, Lewis told The Chief.
Frid said it would be very helpful if someone with a large piece of land in Squamish could store the remaining Riverside homes, if need be, until the spots at Spiral Mobile Home Park are ready.
“I know this is not a great alternative, but if they have to be off the land, it’ll be nice to know we can move these at the last minute to a safe spot,” Frid said.
Three of the remaining Riverside tenants, Stephen Bot, Wendy Linton and Jennifer Rivalin, did not originally sign an agreement to leave the park.
The Squamish Nation filed court actions against the three in June.
According to the Nation, an agreement has now been reached with Bot and the court action against him has ended. Details of the agreement are confidential, Lewis said.
Actions against Linton and Rivalin are proceeding in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Lewis said.
Bot and Rivalin did not reply to a request for comment from The Chief.
Linton told The Chief she is frustrated and upset at how the tenants in the park were treated with “complete disregard and contempt” by the Squamish Nation, adding it was extremely disappointing that tenants were treated as “not worthy of engaging in dialogue.”
The Nation is asking general and special damages including rent, costs and interest, Lewis said, and a declaration that Lots 6 and 7 are “un-allotted reserve land set apart for the use and benefit of the Squamish Nation and that the Squamish Nation is entitled to possession thereof.”
The Nation is also seeking an order for possession of the trailer pads and an injunction to restrain the defendants from remaining in possession of the pads.
