North end advocates have won their court case against the city.

The judge presiding in the St. Pat’s Alexandra case has nixed the sale of the school property to JONO Developments, and says the city should have followed its own policy and offered the site to community groups before selling it to a private developer.

“We’re overjoyed,” says north end crusader Rev. Rhonda Britton. “It is a victory for us as folks who try to do, you know, to come around community and support them. It’s a validation of a right of communities to self-determine and to be included in the decisions about what happens in their community, to their schools and other public properties.”

Community groups (North End Community Health Association, Mi’kmaq Native Friendship Society and Richard Preston Centre for Excellence Society) had submitted arguments that the city had not followed its own procedures in the way that it disposed of the St. Pat’s Alexandra school property.

“The justice agreed with us that we were owed a duty of fairness in HRM following it own procedures,” she says. “Secondly, the justice agreed with our argument that the city breached its own charter by selling the school for below market value.”

The lawyer representing the community groups says it could be a while before we know what will happen with the school site.

“The process is stopped, subject to appeal,” says attorney Ronald Pink. “There’s a 25 day, business day appeal period. So that will take you well past Oct. 20 in the event. So, it will be for the new council to decide (what happens to the property) when the time comes.”

The city has yet to comment. Neither has the developer, Joe Metlege.

Earlier this year, Metledge said the city would have a “mammoth lawsuit” on its hands if the sale didn’t go through.