Rankin Inlet (Apr 26/06) - The hamlet of Rankin Inlet has reached a deal with the Evaz Group to regain ownership of five parcels of land leased to Sans Leasing.

Land committee member Coun. Justin Merritt said the hamlet will pay $50,000 for the leases.

He said the terms of the leases were not being adhered to in all five cases.

"The next step is the lawyers clearing the paperwork and the leases being returned to the hamlet," said Merritt.

"Once we have the actual leases, conditions will be attached to give them (Sans Leasing) a set amount of time to get any belongings out of the buildings involved.

"We want the buildings torn down this summer."

According to the hamlet, the $500 annual fee to retain each lot is a fraction of their combined value of about $240,000 as equity leases.

Merritt said the process of reclaiming the leases began about 30 months ago when he and Mayor Lorne Kusugak drove around the hamlet and listed about 20 lots they saw problems with.

He said nine leases have been reclaimed by the hamlet since then, and the land committee will now focus on the next group of lots. "We couldn't take on all 20 at once with the staff we had, so we selected a few test cases to proceed with.

"Since the Sans Leasing lots never went to court, we'll never know what the outcome would have been. But the hamlet believes it was right in regards to the matter, so this is probably how we will handle any cases of a similar nature."

Merritt said the hamlet has recently turned down requests for commercial property because it couldn't find suitable lots.

He said now that the hamlet has control over property, it can position itself to take advantage of future opportunities.

"We had no control to ensure the bylaws were being properly followed in the past, and you have to be consistent to be an effective municipality.

"The same situation came up when the government ran lands for the hamlet and it offered about $500,000 for that much property. That was one of the major problems we faced when we first started dealing with this matter."