How the Fredericton Exhibition Grounds expropriation will end is a ‘toss-up,’ says lawyer
CBC
The City of Fredericton is moving ahead with its plan to kick a handful of businesses and the New Brunswick Exhibition off the Exhibition Grounds.
But the city's chances of success are a "toss-up," says Robert Pineo, a Halifax-based expropriation and litigation lawyer with more two decades of experience in the field.
The city's decision to expropriate was announced on Sept. 22 during a council meeting.
The notice became official on Oct. 9, giving interested parties until Nov. 9 to object.
Pineo described this as a “rare” case because the city and the exhibition group both have a public purpose on the property at the edge of downtown Fredericton, near Wilmot Park.
Public purpose is about how the land will be used to benefit the community after expropriation. The city must provide its reasoning to validate the expropriation.
Pineo said generally it’s easy to prove public purpose, and “almost always” the expropriation reason is valid.
Based on city council's September resolutions, the public purpose on the city's side is to make the land, already owned by the city, available for housing, a middle school, commercial space and indoor and outdoor community spaces.
But Pineo said the exhibition’s agricultural events and fairs and the property's status as a community-gathering place are also valid public purposes.
“It could be an interesting argument that … the status quo is a valid public purpose and the expropriation shouldn't go forward.”
Most cases Pineo sees in his practice in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia involve private landowners with no public purpose.
The history of the Exhibition Grounds, and its use for exhibition purposes, goes back almost 200 years. N.B. Ex has been leasing the land from the city for $1 a year since 1948. The current lease is a 21-year term that expires in December 2031.
Pineo said there are other aspects that make the Exhibition Grounds case unusual.
He said expropriation is "the taking of land by an authorized authority, usually a government."
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