More On Simpson Covenant

I have been doing a lot of reading about the Simpson Covenant and have discovered that the Simpson family is only telling half the story. The Simpson family makes the comment that their father sold the property for considerably less then market value to the city. Well that would be correct except for one major point. If the property had remained commercial in standing then yes, the amount would have been considerably less. But as soon as you place a restrictive covenant on the property and remove the commercial viability, you reduce the market value of the property. This is why the city council of the day stated that the amount paid for the property was a reasonable amount when convincing the population to vote on the bylaw which gave permission to purchase the property. (Printed in the Daily Courier on April 26, 1945)

The agreement also states (Printed in the Daily Courier on May 31st, 1945) that the property cannot be sold for commercial purposes but if the city does not use the property for civic purposes then it to be sold back to Mr. Simpson for the same price sold to the city. At that time the property would return to its commercial status and be worth the original market value. Now 50 plus years later, I can see why the Simpson family did not want to exchange the parking lot for a larger piece of green space right along a newly created park. If they did, the area they would receive would be an area of no commercial value to them, whereas keeping the parking lot area would keep a large commercial area available to them now worth millions.

On March 8th, 2005 in a letter to the Kelowna Daily Courier Mrs Simpson stated that “the Simpson family had nothing to gain in this dispute” but in theory if the City of Kelowna wanted to sell this property it would have to be sold back to the Simpson family, the covenant would cease to exist and the Simpson family could make millions by selling that area of lake front property. And people are pointing out that the City of Kelowna is only into development for the money? Maybe they should rethink that!

Duane Tresnich
Founder, Movekelownaforward.com