The City of Victoria's offer to buy one of three budget hotels for affordable housing has been accepted.

“We’re excited that our bid has been accepted,” Mayor Dean Fortin said Friday, but added the purchase price is not being revealed at this point.

“The process is that it now goes in front a judge who will open it up and see if there are any other bidders. So we’re protecting the price that we’ve put in.”

The city had hoped to buy three of the bankrupt Traveller’s Inn properties — at 723 Field St., 710/712 Queens Ave. and 120 Gorge Rd.

Its offer to buy the Gorge Road property has been accepted and now has 45 days to conduct its due diligence — assessing the condition of the property and determining what improvements are needed.

Negotiations are continuing on 710/712 Queens Ave. and the offer on the hotel at 723 Field St. was rejected.

Fortin says the city says it is no longer interested in the Field Street property because of significant building code violations.

The city is said to be partnering with the Capital Regional District, B.C. Housing and the Greater Victoria Coalition to end Homelessness on the bids, which were presented to the court-appointed receivers in late January.

Fortin acknowledged that, at this point, it’s more akin to partnership in principle as only the city has committed cash.

“Once we have the property secured we’ll be looking to B.C. Housing to provide the long-term mortgage to help capture and pay for the price on these. The CRD obviously has both the regulatory role in the sense of the housing trust fund as well as its efforts around affordable housing.

“So hopefully they’re going to have skin in the game in the future once we nail this down. But we needed a lead which is the City of Victoria stepping up and saying: ‘OK, let’s secure these and then we can start moving forward on the details of having those funds available.’”

The city-owned housing would likely be operated through a non-profit organization in partnership with B.C. Housing.

The city began looking at options for low-cost housing immediately after the Traveller’s Inn went into receivership.

The hotel chain has long housed low-income people over the winter months, charging weekly or monthly rates. Close to half of the rooms of the three Traveller’s Inns are already let to those needing low-cost housing.

bcleverley@tc.canwest.com