Days after it was brought to light that homeowners of units in Victoria’s Vivid at the Yates building purchased the homes against rules set in the covenant, the total number of lawsuits filed by BC Housing against allegedly ineligible homeowners has risen to 22.

When the project was first announced, it was given an interest-free loan of $53 million with the covenant that the units would only be sold to people with a household income of $150,000 or less and the units would be priced eight per cent below market value.

However, on March 5, CBC revealed the B.C. government was suing some of those homeowners, arguing they were ineligible to purchase under these requirements.

On March 5, the B.C. government said there were eight claims filed against Vivid at the Yates homeowners, and in the past few days an additional 14 lawsuits have been filed, bringing the total to 22. The province says BC Housing will plans to file more lawsuits in the coming weeks.

https://www.cheknews.ca/22-open-lawsuits-filed-by-bc-housing-against-vivid-at-the-yates-homeowners-1194216/

I can't believe how much incorrect and misinformation was put out by the media on this tory in the first 48 hours.....wtf happened to journalism?

Not one journalist thought to look at the qualification criteria/paperwork?

A bit of Gell-Mann amnesia here?

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

- Michael Crichton

After many affluent owners of multiple properties scammed B.C. Housing by buying publicly subsidized units in ­Victoria that were supposedly for middle-income, first-time buyers, the NDP government had a problem.

It centred on the Vivid building in downtown Victoria, which opened in 2021. Ample evidence started emerging soon after that buyers were bypassing restrictions designed to keep them available for middle-income people. Much legal work started internally in government to rectify the situation.

A key issue in the recovery effort was whether to come clean and admit the government had been played, or stay mum while the legal proceedings played out.

CBC reporter Jason Proctor, who broke the Vivid story last spring based on the blizzard of lawsuits that developed, followed up on it this week after getting reams of government documents via freedom-of-information.

They confirm that the Housing Ministry — headed by NDP Leader David Eby — opted to keep quiet. It wasn’t until Proctor combed the court registry that it became clear to taxpayers that a key NDP affordability move aimed at the “missing middle” part of the housing market had blown up in their faces.

Chard Developments got a $53-million low-interest loan from the government to build Vivid. It was to lower construction costs so that savings could be “passed on to qualifying buyers so units could be purchased at below-market prices,” the government said.

Units were supposed to be offered only to people who made under $150,000 a year, who didn’t own any other property.

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/les-leyne-ministry-stayed-mute-as-owners-scammed-bc-housing-with-victoria-high-rise-purchases-9612371

Eby’s first reaction when the Vivid story broke was to say that the pilot program behind the loan was created by the previous B.C. Liberal government.

“I cleaned up mess after mess after these guys left.”

But this is entirely his mess. He’d been housing minister for four years by the time Vivid opened and started selling condos to people who had no business living there.

He was the one who issued the news release when it was completed, congratulating himself for helping it happen.

_________________________________

But up to a third of the units were bought by people who may have bypassed the qualifications.

Yeah, that was a good article. Typical politician is Eby, always blame someone else for your screw-ups.