Pickering Farmlands
Developer giving no ground in fight
over Pickering farmlands
Ontario's proposed community for 70,000 people in Pickering is one step closer to reality after the court of appeal earlier last month rejected a developer's opposition to the planning process.
But Silvio De Gasperis, who wants the right to build subdivisions on about 600 hectares of provincially protected farmland he owns just west of Seaton, is not ready to park his earth movers yet.
De Gasperis has turned his legal sights on the province's environmental assessment process for Seaton, which he claims has been inadequate. And on Wednesday, he is seeking a court injunction to halt the project until the case is heard in September.
Seaton is part of several thousand hectares of land in north Pickering and Markham the provincial and federal governments expropriated in the early 1970s for an airport and a community of up to 250,000 people. The plan has since been downgraded and much of the land has been either sold or protected as an agricultural preserve.
The province is urbanizing its Seaton lands now as part of a plan to stop developers from building on the Oak Ridges Moraine. Under a 2001 provincial deal, Richmond Hill developers were given land in Seaton in exchange for their property on the moraine.
An environmental assessment of the land exchange was completed in January. But De Gasperis, the city of Pickering, a first nations advocate and others complained that the province's streamlined process wasn't good enough and asked Environment Minister Laurel Broten to order a "full" environmental assessment.
In late May, Broten denied the request, paving the way for the land exchange to be completed. De Gasperis and others are now appealing to the courts to overrule the minister.
"The entire transaction is based on an assumption that the Oak Ridges lands are more environmentally sensitive than the Seaton lands and therefore Oak Ridges should be conserved and Seaton should be developed," says De Gasperis' lawyer Jim Bunting, who is representing two other land owners in the area.
"If that assumption is wrong — and the only way to find out if it's wrong, in our view, is to conduct a full environmental assessment — the deal doesn't make a lot of sense," Bunting says.
Adds De Gasperis: "Stay tuned."
— Laurie Monsebraaten, The Toronto Star
Ontario's proposed community for 70,000 people in Pickering is one step closer to reality after the court of appeal earlier last month rejected a developer's opposition to the planning process.
But Silvio De Gasperis, who wants the right to build subdivisions on about 600 hectares of provincially protected farmland he owns just west of Seaton, is not ready to park his earth movers yet.
De Gasperis has turned his legal sights on the province's environmental assessment process for Seaton, which he claims has been inadequate. And on Wednesday, he is seeking a court injunction to halt the project until the case is heard in September.
Seaton is part of several thousand hectares of land in north Pickering and Markham the provincial and federal governments expropriated in the early 1970s for an airport and a community of up to 250,000 people. The plan has since been downgraded and much of the land has been either sold or protected as an agricultural preserve.
The province is urbanizing its Seaton lands now as part of a plan to stop developers from building on the Oak Ridges Moraine. Under a 2001 provincial deal, Richmond Hill developers were given land in Seaton in exchange for their property on the moraine.
An environmental assessment of the land exchange was completed in January. But De Gasperis, the city of Pickering, a first nations advocate and others complained that the province's streamlined process wasn't good enough and asked Environment Minister Laurel Broten to order a "full" environmental assessment.
In late May, Broten denied the request, paving the way for the land exchange to be completed. De Gasperis and others are now appealing to the courts to overrule the minister.
"The entire transaction is based on an assumption that the Oak Ridges lands are more environmentally sensitive than the Seaton lands and therefore Oak Ridges should be conserved and Seaton should be developed," says De Gasperis' lawyer Jim Bunting, who is representing two other land owners in the area.
"If that assumption is wrong — and the only way to find out if it's wrong, in our view, is to conduct a full environmental assessment — the deal doesn't make a lot of sense," Bunting says.
Adds De Gasperis: "Stay tuned."
— Laurie Monsebraaten, The Toronto Star
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