[getsmart-l] de Gasperis fined $702, 000 in costs after court ruled that there was no legal merit

[John O'Gorman]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070928.SEATON28/TPStory/?query=gasperis
OAK RIDGES MORAINE

Motive in trying to stop land deal misleading, court rules
JAMES RUSK 

September 28, 2007

Prominent developer Silvio de Gasperis and two companies allied with him acted in bad faith when, on environmental grounds, they tried to stop a land deal that was a key part of the establishment of the Oak Ridges Moraine, a scathing Ontario Divisional Court judgment has found.

"In our view, the bringing of this application was vexatious and an egregious example of abuse of the process of this court in that the applicants clearly intended to mislead this court as to their motives in bringing the application," the court ruled this week.

The panel of three Ontario Superior Court judges awarded the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and the Ontario Realty Corp. $702,000 in costs after it ruled that there was no legal merit in the case brought by two landowners, Hollinger Farms No. 1 Inc. and Altona Farms Inc.

The two companies are part of a group led by Mr. de Gasperis. Since the province stopped development on the Oak Ridges Moraine in 2003, it has been trying to get permission to build in Pickering on what are known as the Cherrywood Lands.

Cherrywood lies next to a site referred to as the Seaton Lands, owned by the Ontario Realty Corp., which the province agreed to swap with a developer who will build on them instead of a more environmentally sensitive site in Richmond Hill.

Hollinger and Altona had argued in court that the land swap should have been subjected to a detailed environmental assessment including a public hearing, rather than a simpler documentary process.

But in a ruling rejecting the developer's application, the Divisional Court found last month that "it is clear from the evidence before this court that De Gasperis and the applicants have no interest in an upgraded individual environmental assessment of the Seaton Lands.

"Their only interest is in frustrating, disrupting and delaying the achievement of public policy goals of the province to protect the Oak Ridge Moraine and to establish controlled development of the Seaton Lands."

The judgment was hailed by Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence Canada, the group instrumental in establishing development controls on the Oak Ridges Moraine, which have now been extended by the greenbelt around Toronto.

"This [the application for environmental review] was one of the most aggressive and blatant attempts to undermine the greenbelt. So this is good news for those who care about good public policy and the greenbelt," Dr. Smith said, of the 730,000 hectares of environmentally sensitive lands.

"What this means is that we can now get the show on the road in terms of proper planning in this area of the province." 

Attempts to reach Mr. De Gasperis were unsuccessful.
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