Cooksville homeowners oppose plan to turn homes into Mississauga’s ‘Central Park’
Councillor Nando Iannicca has long dreamt of building 20-hectare park in central Mississauga.

TheStar.com
Sept. 8, 2017
Alex McKeen

Mississauga Councillor Nando Iannicca called June 21 “one of the greatest days in the history of Cooksville.”

Iannicca, who has served the area on city council for 27 years, was elated the day that council moved on his plan for the city to negotiate the purchase of 31 homes over 11 hectares near Cooksville Creek to build a “Central Park” in Mississauga. The resolution passed in camera.

But the plan came as a shock to the people the plan would most directly impact — the homeowners.

Michele Alexander, 57, received a letter from the city in June which said the city was interested in buying the home she’s lived in for 18 years. Worried about the possibility of expropriation, she was quick to check the news for more information.

She didn’t learn the details of Iannicca’s park plan until early July, when it was reported in the media.

“The first thing that upset all of us is that there was no conversation ahead of time,” Alexander said. “None of us saw this coming.”

Now Alexander is among a group of homeowners who are determined not to sell to the city. They say they were blind-sided by their own councillor’s “secret” plan. She was among a number of Cooksville Creek homeowners who spoke at a Mississauga council meeting Wednesday, asking for assurance that their homes won’t be expropriated.

“I would probably be the last person out of there,” Alexander said in an interview with the Star. “I would fight to the very end because it’s just wrong.”

Iannicca said he’s been transparent about his plan to “kill two birds with one stone” — to provide desperately needed park space to the growing city, and buy homes he said that would be hard to sell given the area’s risk of flooding.

Council gave the green light for the city to purchase the homes, all of which are in the city’s floodplain, for their market value — no more than $2 million per home. The money to buy the homes will come from a city fund set aside for the purchase of land for parks. The council decision did not give city staff a mandate for expropriation.

By 2031, 7,000 more people will live in Cooksville and the area will be connected with the future Hurontario Light Rail Transit system. Iannicca said the need for park space will grow along with the neighbourhood’s population.

The large park would help correct the city’s green space deficit and reduce the risk of floods in the area it would occupy, he said.

Alexander is doubtful that the money offered by the city will be enough to motivate her or her neighbours to move, especially since many of them have lived there for decades.

The abundant trees in the neighbourhood make “you feel like you’re going to a cottage when you go here,” Alexander said.

The community is also tight knit — especially since the flood of 2013, when the neighbours helped each other out.

“There’s no way I could replace this for that kind of money,” Alexander said.

Linda Kaszuba-Kostick, a realtor who lives and works in the Cooksville neighbourhood, said that homes near Cooksville Creek form a “high demand pocket;” the neighbourhood has good schools, existing green space and home values have risen in anticipation of the incoming LRT.

“I don’t think areas suffer from having another park,” she said. “If it’s done beautifully, which I’m sure it will be, it will be a good thing.”

Kaszuba-Kostick said the values of the properties the city wants to buy are difficult to predict. Some of the homes in the area are on large lots, which could make them worth more than $1 million, but the fact that they are on the floodplain hinders owners from building bigger homes on the lots, which is a trend in the area.

Iannicca declined to release details about which properties specifically the city wishes to buy, but said that only 12 of them are occupied by the owners.

Laura Piette, director of Park and Forestry, called the prospect of buying residents’ longtime homes “a delicate matter.” She said the city intends to meet with all homeowners, and proceed to negotiate with willing sellers only.

But enough homeowners refusing to sell could spell the end of Iannicca’s years-old Central Park dreams.

“That is my cautionary tale for everyone,” Iannicca said. “If this plan does not find favour we’ll turn our attention elsewhere.”

There are plenty of other homes located in the floodplain, whose owners may be more willing to sell to the city, in the event that Iannicca’s own constituents resist, he said.

If that happens, “I think many of them will see this as a tremendous opportunity lost,” he said.

But Iannica’s not planning on that right now. He said the home purchases will take time — up to three years — and that council will have time later to reevaluate if the Cooksville Creek owners don’t budge.

Iannicca said that he understands the homeowners’ wish that they were consulted beforehand, but insists that he abstained from reaching out before the plan was approved to protect their privacy.

“Now, dare I say, none of them have lost a damn thing,” he said. “I had no official story to tell until June of this year.”

The city is now in the process of meeting with the homeowners.