Burlington reaches $2-million settlement with condo owners
Hamilton Spectator
by Teviah Moro
10 January 2019
BURLINGTON — The city's insurer has settled a lawsuit
with residents of a condo building in Burlington that has been beset
with structural problems.
"This settlement brings closure to a long and difficult chapter for the
residents of 2411 New St.," Mayor Marianne Meed Ward said in a news
release Thursday.
"I'm thankful to all parties for working together to reach a settlement, so everyone can now move forward."
Lawyers involved in the $2-million settlement, which also includes four
other defendants, are finalizing details to formally close the
litigation.
The settlement, which the city says is not an "admission of liability"
for any of the defendants, heads off a trial, which was scheduled to
start in January.
The condo owners alleged the city had been negligent in approving the
construction of the apartment building in 1965 and its conversion to
condos in 1998.
Residents say they didn't know about structural problems in the building until a damning engineering report in 2009.
The city had insisted the six-storey building was safe and rejected any
responsibility for its problems after the condo corporation launched a
lawsuit in 2010.
In late 2017, renovations started on the building after the city
reached a settlement with the condo corporation in that lawsuit.
However, a second lawsuit, launched in 2011 by individual condo owners
— that named the city, developers, a real estate firm and engineers —
remained active.
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