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: Environment | Tags: dalton mcguinty, Durham, Liberal, Pickering, Seaton
The Province (Premier Dalton McGuinty and Cabinet) has committed to impose and approve its land swap deal for Pickering’s Seaton lands with developers. In making this deal, Mr. McGuinty will allow the most environmentally sensitive land in Pickering to be destroyed, which will make a mockery of the word sustainability.
Say goodbye to 35 species of fish in Seaton with the last three coldwater streams in Durham.
Say goodbye to Duffins Creek.
Say goodbye to the 111 wetlands in Seaton.
Say goodbye to the 200 plant species in Seaton.
Say goodbye to the three fresh-water aquifers that lie under Seaton (Pickering) whose volumes equal one million Olympic-size swimming pools. What is the point of protecting the Oak Ridges Moraine if you allow clean large aquifers south of the moraine to be polluted?
Say goodbye to the 40 per cent woodlots in Seaton.
Say hello to the widening of the Whites Road expressway to Hwy. 401.
Say hello to higher municipal taxes.
Torontomatic 