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Whistler municipality back in court to settle decades-old land dispute

Judge to rule on interest payment and costs over the $1.3 million expropriation case for Rainbow Park lands
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Photo courtesy of the RMOW

The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) is in court today arguing over the financial fallout of a decades-long land expropriation lawsuit.

The court meeting is to determine once and for all just how much Whistler owes the Vancouver-based Saxton family for the 44 hectares of land on the shores of what is now Rainbow Park, which it expropriated in 1987.

At that time Whistler paid $367,000 for the land.

But after 20 years a B.C. Court of Appeal ruled in 2011 that that sum was a million dollars short.

The $1.3 million, however, did not include interests and costs. That final number is to be fought out in court again today after a first day of hearings yesterday (April 2 and 3).

"There is nothing new to report on the legal matter at this time but the RMOW will report out when there is public information to share," said communications manager Michele Comeau.

Whistler was to have met in court at the beginning of the year to discuss this matter but that the time the Saxton family lawyer George Macintosh emailed to Pique to say the case was adjourned "to discuss possible settlement."

The Pique will continue to update this story as information becomes available.