Parker lands developer’s $30-M civil suit against city, officials underway

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/09/2021 (1480 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ten months after city council gave the go-ahead to the long-contested Parker lands development, a $30-million lawsuit against the city and four of its officials accused of deliberately delaying the project is before a judge.

At the heart of the case is a plan by developer Gem Equities to build up to 1,918 housing units, to be known as Fulton Grove, on 47 acres of south Winnipeg land surrounded by the CNR Rivers line and the southwest rapid transitway.

“But for the misfeasance of the defendants… the Fulton Grove development should be nearing completion,” lawyers for Gem Equities allege in a statement of claim that is the subject of a six-week civil trial now being heard by Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Shauna McCarthy.

Named defendants in the lawsuit include planning director John Kiernan, former chief planner Braden Smith, senior planner Michael Robinson and zoning and permits administrator Martin Grady.

The statement of claim alleges Kiernan instructed the other defendants to prevent Gem Equities applications from being processed and sent for consideration to a public hearing.

Gem Equities acquired the land in 2009 and by 2013 was working with the city to obtain the necessary permits and approvals for the development, says the statement of claim.

By 2015, the city had moved to expropriate a portion of the land, raising concerns within the urban planning and design division that plans to move ahead with the Fulton Grove development were “premature” as they would increase the value of the land to be expropriated and the cost to the city, the statement of claim alleges.

“From 2014 until mid-2017, the sloth, incompetence and negligence of city employees was sufficient to thwart and delay the Fulton Grove development,” the statement of claim alleges. By March 2017, actions of the defendants “resorted to deliberately unlawful conduct,” including an order by the city that Winnipeg police not remove “illegal trespassers” who tried to prevent the developer from removing trees on the disputed property, the statement of claim alleges.

“Faced with the refusal of the Winnipeg Police Service to enforce the rule of law at the city’s request, the plaintiffs sought and ultimately obtained in interlocutory injunction… prohibiting trespassing on their property,” says the statement of claim.

In August 2019, the city was found in contempt of a court order because it considered the development proposal through a bylaw process, instead of the policy-based one Queen’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond had ordered council to follow. In October 2020, Grammond found the city remained in contempt, having failed to consider Gem Equities’ applications “without delay.”

City council approved the development the following month.

“The intentional failure to comply with (the judge’s orders) has delayed the Fulton Grove development by two years,” the statement of claim alleges.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca