The Land Conservancy of B.C. has reached a major milestone in its lengthy effort to wipe out debt after it won court approval to sell and transfer 27 properties.
Conservation organizations will take over the ecologically sensitive properties Sept. 30 in the Victoria-based non-profit’s single largest transfer of lands. When that happens, it will pay off its secured creditors in full, said Briony Penn, chairwoman of the organization’s board of directors.
“We are on track to do what we intended from the outset — to protect the properties through new ownership and covenants, as appropriate, while raising funds needed to repay creditors,” she said.
Supreme Court of B.C. Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick gave The Land Conservancy what it needed to transfer and sell the package of properties. She agreed to overrule one of the organization’s bylaws, which had banned it from transferring holdings designated as inalienable. A total of 267 Land Conservancy members wrote letters to support overturning the bylaw so that other conservation organizations could take ownership of certain properties.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Nature Trust of B.C. are paying $1.5 million for the properties.
By the end of September, The Land Conservancy’s overall debt will be reduced to $3 million from $8 million, John Shields, operations director, said Wednesday. The TLC will be left with fewer than 10 properties from about 50.
Other properties were sold and transferred earlier, while the future of others must still be resolved.
The Land Conservancy went into credit protection in fall 2013, sinking from debt and a tangled web of mortgages. Shields, former president of the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union, became director of operations as the organization worked with a court-appointed monitor to sort out the complex situation. The court approved a plan of arrangement in April that is essentially the map The Land Conservancy is following to overcome its crippling debt.
Some lands going to the Nature Conservancy or Nature Trust might eventually be transferred to other owners, such as the province, under conditions that will make sure they are always protected, Shields said.
Properties to be transferred include land and a cabin at the Cowichan River, undeveloped parcels and some waterfront land on Salt Spring Island, 140 acres with old-growth Douglas fir on the Nanaimo River, and South Winchelsea Island, off Vancouver Island’s east coast.
Still in the works is an agreement covering the 77-acre Wildwood eco-forest near Cedar.
Abkhazi Garden in Victoria is to be retained by The Land Conservancy. The site is zoned for townhouses and the organization is seeking a developer who will pay for the value of that level of density and then win city hall’s permission to transfer the density to another property, which could then be developed.
