A group of tenants who were displaced from their Metrotown apartment building four years ago are returning to live in the new development that took its place — and they will be paying their old rents.

It’s a milestone in the saga of “demovictions” in the city of Burnaby.

For much of the 2010s, real estate developers were scooping up old rental buildings in Metrotown to build new towers, driving out tenants. Many low-income people depended on those units, with settlement agencies even placing new immigrants and refugees in them. The neighbourhood, where the city was channelling density, became a dramatic site of protest and transformation as wood-frame rental apartments came down and sleek condo towers were erected in their place.

In 2018, the election of a new council and a new mayor kicked off the introduction of tenant protections for this hot area.

Six years later, those efforts culminated in a novel announcement at 6521 Telford Ave., the first redeveloped site to welcome old tenants back to new homes.

At the old building, 54 rental units were destroyed. Forty-nine households were qualified under the lengths of their tenancies to return to homes in the new development. Of those households, 32 returned.

“We heard loud and clear from our community that nobody should be priced out of their neighbourhood,” Mayor Mike Hurley said, standing in front of the six-storey building of replacement rentals, the first of its kind.

“That’s why the City of Burnaby can produce the strongest… suite of rental protections in our country. No one can dispute that. That’s fact.”