Consider the dramatic events Wednesday with the B.C. Supreme Court placing the Olympic Village property into receivership as the beginning of the end.

The court order that essentially gives the city of Vancouver control over the development allows two long-standing demands of the city to be met: First there is now a plan in place for the city to recoup most, if not all of the money coming to it from the developers for its outstanding loan balance of about $740 million; with that in place a marketing plan can now be approved for the sale of the 480 condos plus commercial properties, possibly at reduced rates.

In the likely event the city can’t get all of its money out of the sales of the property, the developer has provided other assets that the receiver can liquidate or turn over to the city to make up some or all of the balance.

This court-arranged process is the result of a deal that was mutually agreed upon between lawyers representing the city and those representing Peter and Shahram Malek, owners of Millennium Development Corporation. But it was a tough couple of weeks’ worth of negotiations that concluded within hours of the city unilaterally heading to court to force the receivership.

It was triggered by the realization that, for the second time in a row, the Maleks were about to default on a loan repayment, this one for $75 million due in January. Following the first red flags going up over a loan default in September, the city began to aggressively search out and attach legal encumbrances on the titles of other Malek-owned properties. At the same time, the city began discussing the possibility of the legal remedy we saw put in place this week.

If you want to start pointing fingers over this mess, you will have to go back four city administrations to the dying days of Philip Owen’s final term in office.

Based on documents retrieved by anti-Olympics activist Philip Le Good, two days before the Nov. 16, 2002 municipal election, the city signed a contract with the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation agreeing to build the Village by November 2009 in exchange for a contribution of $30 million.

Nothing concrete happened on the development during Larry Campbell’s term although there was a commitment the project would be LEED Gold and housing would be equally divided among social, low-cost and market.

It was when Sam Sullivan was mayor that the housing mix changed, the contract was let to Millennium and the construction began.

By the time Gregor Robertson and his crew took over, Millennium’s financer, the Fortress hedge fund, was balking at handing over construction advances because of cost over-runs. That led the city to have the Vancouver Charter amended so it could essentially replace Fortress as the banker for the project.

Through all of this, land-use and real estate specialist Bob Ransford was on the board of the Urban Development Institute, an organization representing the city’s major developers. He was also, incidentally, Peter Ladner’s campaign manager in his run again Robertson for mayor.

It’s his view that the city under the management of Judy Rogers never had the expertise to oversee the development. Those put in charge were way over their heads and Sullivan never asked for outside help.

Within weeks of Robertson’s election, he was reaching out, first to billionaire businessman Jimmy Pattison, who advised him on which lawyers to hire and then to the UDI, which offered a panel of expert developers to help guide the process the city has followed.

Ransford is critical of this administration for publicly criticizing the Maleks; that did nothing to help sales. But he generally believes Robertson inherited a mess and his council and staff are doing the best possible job.

And, by the way, this will take several years before the end is finally reached.

agarr@vancourier.com