Vaughan dump cleanup snagged in web of lawsuits

The Woodbridge dump site was supposed to be cleaned up months ago.

Thestar.com
June 6, 2016
By Noor Javed

Phyllis Barbieri can’t bear to look out her window.

The view from every room of her home on 12 Campania Court in Woodbridge is of an illegal dumping site that was supposed to be cleaned up by the owner of the property - under City of Vaughan orders - last fall.

Instead, the rusting oil drums, mountain of tires, and mounds of debris have sat there all winter - part of a headache the Barbieris say they have been living with for nearly a decade.

Now, instead of resolution, the illegal dump site is in the centre of a web of lawsuits: the developer, Tony Gentile, is suing the city and Barbieri’s daughter Simone for slander. And the Barbieris, who live next door, have taken Gentile to small claims court for tearing down their fence in June 2015.

But, more than compensation, the Barbieris say all they want is “to be able to enjoy our home again.”

“We cannot live a normal or comfortable life, with this beside us. It’s really affected the quality of our life,” Simone said, including the stigma of living next to the dump. “The city has to support the residents in some way or the other, even if there is a lawsuit going on.”

But under the murky cloud of a $6-million lawsuit, the city has clammed up. And the Sept. 15 deadline set by council last year for the site to be cleaned and remediated has long since passed. No new deadline has been set. A community task force of residents and councillors, suggested by residents last fall, never came to be.

When the Star asked city officials about how they would get the developer to fulfil his promise, there was a standard response: “As this matter is before the courts, we cannot comment further,” said a spokeswoman for the city.

Gentile’s lawyer, Robert Karrass, did not respond to numerous requests for comment. Calls and messages left at Gentile’s office were not returned.

The site at 5550 Langstaff Rd. has a hard-to-confirm history. For decades, it served as unofficial dump for the city. But the site was covered up, and when the Barbieris moved there in 1997, it was a green field deemed “agriculture and natural vegetation” on the local development plans, they say. In 2007, local developer Tony Gentile bought the 11-hectare property for $2 million, according to land registry records.

His plan was to clean it up and eventually build homes on it. And while he built homes on one section of the land in Phase 1, he used this site as a “holding area” for excavated materials, Gentile previously told the Star. The cleanup is expected to cost him $7 million.

But the cleanup of the site, the second phase of Castle Manor homes, has been beset with delays - including some due to weather and alleged offences under environmental legislation — and accusations from neighbours and the city that cleanup has not proceeded as quickly as it should.

“The plaintiff, contrary to assertions, failed to expeditiously remediate the lands,” the city wrote in its statement of defence filed in March.

Gentile is seeking $6 million from the city for breach of contract, deceit and conspiracy. The city denies all the allegations.

According to the city’s statement, “Vaughan council passed a resolution prohibiting the city from executing a draft plan of the subdivision for the Phase II lands until the lands have been remediated,” and a “record of the site condition has been submitted and acknowledged” by the provincial environment ministry.

“The steps required to move the development forward are within the purview of the plaintiff and not Vaughan,” the statement says.

Gentile’s company is also seeking $800,000 from Simone for malicious prosecution, slander and intentional infliction of mental distress after she sought a peace bond against him.

In his suit, he alleges the Barbieri family has acted to “interrupt and delay the completion of remediation and development of the site.”

He says that he had to remove a chain-link fence the family installed and put up temporary plywood fences to “protect homes adjacent to the site from dust.” He alleges that upon witnessing the fencing coming down, Simone acted in a “very aggressive manner.”

In her statement of defence, Simone says Gentile uttered threats to her and “she was concerned with her safety.”

None of the allegations has been proven in court. An attempt at mediation to resolve the small-claims complaint over the fence had little success. The two parties are due back in court in June.

Gentile is scheduled to be court this spring to deal with eight alleged environmental offences related to “the use and operation of waste screening equipment without ministry approval,” said a spokeswoman from the provincial Environment Ministry.

After a long winter, the cleanup has resumed on the dump site, said Simone, who has been asking the city and province to monitor the site for dust, noise and pollution to ensure the process causes the least disruption possible to residents.

“After having lived with this mess for years, that’s the least they can do,” she said.

The city, however, has mostly been mum on its role, saying it’s up to the ministry to manage “site activities to ensure that the waste on the site is being managed and disposed of in accordance with all regulatory requirements,” the city planner told Simone in an email last month.

The Environment Ministry says Gentile’s cleanup process is being closely monitored. Or it was, until the company approved to screen the garbage on site unexpectedly quit last week.

“The ministry understands that the screening contractor will no longer be working at the 5550 Langstaff site,” said ministry spokeswoman Lindsay Davidson. Simone says residents don’t understand how the clean-up is still going on without ministry approvals.

But after years of promises, nothing surprises her anymore.

“When will this mess be over? It’s been long enough.”