Developer clears legal hurdle to build Vaughan condos on same site as its cancelled Icona project

Thestar.com
June 7, 2019
Tess Kalinowski

Gupta Group has cleared a legal hurdle that will likely allow it to resell condos on the same site as the Icona development -- the project it cancelled last September when it returned the deposits and crushed the dreams of hundreds of homebuyers.

A letter from the lawyer of a numbered company that held a restrictive covenant on the land that Gupta owns at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre says it no longer opposes the developer’s application to build homes on the property.

“Icona and our client have now resolved this and related matters, which includes a discharge of the restrictive covenant,” says a letter to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) from Patrick G. Duffy of Stikeman Elliott, written on behalf of 2748355 Canada Inc.

It is “disheartening” news, said Melissa Leone Jardim, who bought into the Icona project at Hwy. 7 and Interchange Way.

“This means that Gupta gets the green light to build on our site after all. But what about us, what about the original condo purchasers? Had Gupta resolved the issue prior to selling us a dream, we may still have had a condo to call our own,” she said.

Gupta appealed to the LPAT after Vaughan’s committee of adjustment refused to deal with its request for variances for the development in January because the restrictive covenant was a point of legal contention. That covenant, part of the terms of the purchase of the land by Gupta in 2005, legally prohibited the building of homes on the property.

Icona buyers say the covenant was in place when Gupta, which also operates the Easton’s Group of Hotels, sold more than 1,500 units in early 2017. Dozens of the buyers turned up at a dramatic meeting of the Vaughan committee of adjustment in January urging officials not to deal with the developer.

A Facebook posting by the condo buyers’ group says it plans to carry on with legal action against Gupta.

The settlement between the developer and the neighbouring property owner that sold the land means Gupta can now move ahead and charge more for the same units they bought, says the Facebook posting from buyer Patricia DeBartolo.

“Had (Steve Gupta) done things the right way from the beginning we could still have been owners of a condo in the Icona project,” she wrote.

Vaughan will await Gupta’s return to the committee of adjustment, said a spokesperson for the city. Although the pre-construction condo sales were cancelled, the development application was approved by council last June and is expected to move through the planning process, said an email from Teresa Fazari on Friday.

The new proposal is for a highrise mixed-use development with 1,649 condos and townhomes, a hotel and convention centre withe six levels of underground parking. The hotel that currently occupies the sight will be demolished.

Gupta has a second application to build three towers at Yonge St. and Steeles Ave.

The company did not return calls from the Toronto Star. A private media relations firm that has previously spoken on behalf of Gupta said it no longer works for the developer.

Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua has called the Icona cancellation a private contractual matter between the project vendor and purchasers that is beyond the city’s jurisdiction. But he said he was not impressed by the cancellation.

Buyers in another cancelled project, the Liberty Group’s Cosmos condos, also at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, lost a court application in April that would have allowed them to pursue that developer for damages.