City of Vancouver is ready to force a hotel with over 1,000 violations out of its owners’ hands

The City of Vancouver is so disgusted with the upkeep at the Regent Hotel, a Downtown Eastside single-room occupancy building, it’s looking to buy the property, and another one where low-income residents live in deplorable conditions.

And it will go so far as to expropriate the properties if it can’t just buy them off a notorious group of landlords who have done nothing to address their issues.

WATCH: Balmoral Hotel evictions

The Regent Hotel at 160 East Hastings Street has been the subject of over 1,000 health and safety violations.

Its owners, the Sahotas, have done nothing to fix them. They were slapped with 500 building violations in December, on top of 60 charges they were already facing.

Their lack of attention has left that building and another, the Balmoral, in wretched condition, with leaky ceilings and structures at risk of collapse.

READ MORE: City of Vancouver files 60 charges against owners of ‘disgusting’ Downtown Eastside SRO

“If a deal cannot be reached we are prepared to consider expropriation as a last resort,” said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

The current plan for the Regent is to move all of its residents into the province-owned Jubilee Rooms, or somewhere else.

“In their new home, they will have access to clean water, they will have working utilities, they will have washrooms that actually work,” said B.C. Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Selina Robinson.

The City of Vancouver has called this a major step forward that’s only possible thanks to a change in government.

“We got nowhere with the Regent and Balmoral, and the former housing minister, and it was simply not a priority for he and his government,” Robertson said.

The city will next negotiate with the Regent’s owners, but there’s no word yet on how much they’ll offer for buildings that are unfit for anyone to live in.