Filed under: Environment, News | Tags: Arista Homes, canada, dalton mcguinty, Durham, greenbelt, Oak Ridges Moraine, Ontario, Pickering, Seaton, Silvio DeGasperis, TAAC Construction
The Superior Court has ordered two companies associated with developer Silvio DeGasperis to pay the province $702,000 in legal costs, saying they used the false cloak of environmental concern to try to bully the province into allowing development on their own Greenbelt-designated land.n a stiff rebuke to what it called “a vexatious and egregious example of abuse of the process,” the court ruled the companies must pay nearly all of the $761,000 the province claimed in costs.
It is possibly the largest such judgment ever awarded to a government in Canada.
“The conduct of the applicants in bringing this lengthy, complex and expensive application before this court as a tactic in the ongoing war (with the province) … falls well within (the meaning of) reprehensible, scandalous or outrageous conduct,” the judges said, repeating observations made at the close of the legal battle in June.
The issue revolved around a controversial land swap between developers and the province that would preserve environmentally sensitive lands on the Oak Ridges Moraine in exchange for the Seaton lands in North Pickering.
But when the Dalton McGuinty government introduced the Greenbelt – a protected strip of land stretching around the Golden Horseshoe – 400 hectares of DeGasperis’s own land in Pickering went from prime real estate to a no-build zone.
DeGasperis launched a series of costly legal challenges against the provincial plan for Seaton, which envisions a unique community of 15 compact neighbourhoods bordering forests and streams.
He tried to argue that his lands were better suited for development than Seaton, in a legal battle he has said cost him almost $5 million.
The judges said the DeGasperis-related companies, which tried to argue their lands were less environmentally sensitive than those the province chose for development, in fact had “no interest in the environmental assessment of the Seaton Lands.”
“Their sole motive for bringing the application was to frustrate, disrupt and delay the Land Exchange as a further step in their ongoing war with the Province and their attempts to harass and intimidate the province into permitting development on their lands adjoining the Seaton Lands,” the judges wrote.
DeGasperis’s TAAC Construction is one of the GTA’s top construction servicing companies, with its housing arm, Arista Homes, among the top 10 homebuilders. He employs 850 and has told industry insiders his companies gross about $650 million a year.
Filed under: Issues | Tags: development, greenbelt, growth, GTA, Hazel, McCallion, Miller, Mississauga, roads, Sprawl, Toronto
All my life I have lived in the GTA and not much has changed, in terms of urban planning. I am not an expert by any means. But can someone tell me what the experts have done? Sure, probably a whole lot for the city of Toronto and beyond. I am just the average GTA resident that has to live with those wonderful decisions. Please don’t tell me that I should simply “consume less” and live downtown in an 800 sq. ft. condo for half a million (I’m exaggerating here). Not that anything is wrong with a smaller condo. I used to live in one, but that’s not the point. With our patchwork of cities and “Band-Aid” solutions it’s a miracle that I can get from point A to point B in 1 1/2 hours. But I digress! We still continue to build without true planning amongst GTA towns and cities. We still continue to think that we have a lot of time to solve our urban issues. It’s another example of much “precious little time” we have for the GTA.
In some ways I wonder if the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) is a victim of its own design. We essentially have one large city surrounded by a lot of “wanna-be” cities. Okay, I’m just kidding! I’m not against these towns and cities, since I live in one of them. We have Pickering, Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Brampton and many others. No, I did not forget “THE blessed state of Mississauga“, run by her worship Hazel McCallion. Also, less we forget all of the other wonderful towns and cities that spread from the city of Toronto, like weeds! However I wonder, is this a great layout? Is this the way it should be?
We cannot change anything now, unless someone decides that it is a good idea to “amalgamate” again. Now that was a great idea? Toronto city council is still complaining about a lack of funds and money. In some ways I cannot blame the “little rulers of their kingdoms”. By design, we zone more land for development, which of course brings in more “TAXES” to the coffers of municipal governments. More people, more cars, small vision and more problems. We are our own victims! Years ago people should have demanded proper planning, however little was done to prevent sprawl. Some would say that sprawl is fine, as long as public transit goes along with it. However, lets be practical here, this is not the case. Especially for all of those people stuck on the 401 trying to get to work and pay their bills.
The Government of Ontario has come up with the “Greenbelt”, which it hopes over the next few decades will curb our urban sprawl. But they continue to loose the point on transit, which should be a precursor to development anyway. I have to spend an entire article on the Greenbelt alone, at a later date. The “Town of Markham” has come up with the idea of a “mixed-used” development called the new Downtown Markham. But I have to wonder? Is it too little to late? Only time will tell!
