Vaughan residents say parkland sell-off proposal would set ‘awful precedent’

Thestar.com
August 8, 2018
Noor Javed

An ambitious plan to create an elite sports academy in Vaughan has local residents riled up after they discovered that the developer’s proposal includes buying public parkland to make his vision a reality.

Earlier this year, residents in Maple were informed about the Mentana Group’s pitch to the City of Vaughan to purchase a 33-acre park site -- known as Vaughan Sports Village Park, along the busy stretch of Rutherford Rd. east of Jane St. -- to build a “community hub” called the Sports Village Berkeley Academy and Entertainment Centre.

A June staff report describes the proposal as a “privately held, publicly accessible community hub” that would include park facilities, skating rinks and a “private educational facility with student residences.”

The proposal includes potentially adding another ice skating rink, an amphitheatre, residences for students and a new gymnasium to a large piece of parkland that already houses a skating rink and other outdoor facilities, the City of Vaughan says.

Local resident Oleg Radov said the idea is a good one, but it shouldn’t be done on public land.

“It’s a beautiful project, but do it on private land,” he said. “We don’t want to see public land turned into private ventures for developers for profit,” he said.

“It will set an awful precedent.”

On most summer nights, Radov said, the park is packed with locals -- the baseball diamonds full and the beach volleyball courts busy. For the residents, he said, the park is a green oasis in one of the busiest areas of the city -- just a few minutes’ drive from the bustling urban area that includes Vaughan Mills Mall, Canada’s Wonderland amusement park and the new Mackenzie Vaughan Hospital.

“There’s just not enough parkland in Vaughan, and they want to sell this? That just doesn’t make any sense,” he said, adding that after the residents heard about the proposal earlier in May, they set up a ratepayers group in three days to show their opposition to the project.

Radov said he also wonders why local residents were kept in the dark about a proposal that first came in front of the city three years ago.

 

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“There were no formal meetings by the city over the past several years as this item went through an internal review process,” said Ward 1 Councillor Marilyn Iafrate, adding that residents were first informed when the developer invited them to a meeting about the proposal days before the May long weekend.

According to a city report, the proposal was brought to the city in 2015 by Tony Furiato, the owner of Mentana Group.

Mentana has been involved with the property for years. In 1999, the city entered into a partnership with Furiato’s company to develop and run a “sports village complex” on the site.

Under the financial model set up at the time, the city would partially fund the complex, while the Mentana Group would serve as a tenant and be “responsible for managing all aspects of the day to day business and operations,” and would pay rent based on revenues until 2040 -- at which time the land and the facility would revert to the city, according to the report.

Furiato approached the city with his new proposal for expanding the facilities in 2015, and city council asked staff to do their due diligence. According to City of Vaughan spokesperson Jill Priest, the city “has spent $218,000 for appraisals, legal services and financial consultations in the evaluation of this proposal” since 2015.

“Public-private partnerships are complex legal and financial arrangements,” she said. “As part of the city’s assessment, significant due diligence is required.”

In an email to the Star, Furiato stressed that the “new Berkeley Community Hub would be open to the public and the facilities would be made available for use by all residents.”

He said the facility has endorsements from a number of local and international hockey and sports associations, which he says amount to “tens of thousands of community members in Vaughan.”

In 2015, he offered $10 million for the parcel of land. But both the city and Furiato say that offer has changed and would be based on “market value.”

According to the city’s analysis, the current sports complex hosts more than two million people per year, and an expansion could “increase the destination and tourism opportunities for Vaughan and provide added public benefits.”

The report does express concern about the “overall city-wide deficiency of parkland” in Vaughan, which is expected to worsen as the population grows. It also voices concern about the limited options for acquiring parkland in this area in the future.

“The city should protect the provision of parkland at this location,” the report says. “In this regard, appropriate protections will be required to be included in any agreement ... to protect the parkland by prohibiting the land from being redeveloped for residential or commercial purposes.”

It also states that conditions would require “unrestricted public access and public use of the outdoor recreational facilities.”

Furiato said the community hub will occupy only two “underutilized” acres of the total site. The remaining land will continue to be parkland, he said in an email.

In letters sent to council, residents say that much of the park is not well maintained: An outdoor skating rink was shut down years ago, the parking lot is full or potholes and a free skateboard park was removed to create a “money-generating volleyball league.” Furiato said the rink was decommissioned due to water-main flooding.

“If this past record of the Mentana Group is any indication of things to come, the community will not have any access to this area,” Mario Marmora wrote in a letter to council.

Iafrate said the project is still being assessed, and that council has requested that Mentana work with area residents before it comes back to council -- likely some time next year.

Furiato said he “welcomes feedback from the public throughout the consultation process so that we can make the best possible hub for our community.”

Iafrate and local residents are also worried about the broader impact of this decision.

“We don’t ever sell active parkland -- will this set precedence for others to come in with an unsolicited proposal to buy our parkland?” Iafrate asked.

Radov agreed: “The city should not be in the business of selling off parkland.”