Vaughan residents fed up with debris mountain

Developers’ promises to clean it up ring hollow for residents who have lived with infill pile for years.

Thestar.com
Aug. 6, 2015
By Noor Javed

Gino Barbieri can’t remember the last time he has felt a cool breeze waft through his Vaughan home. The businessman says it’s been years since he’s opened a window at his home on Campania Court in Woodbridge - even on the hottest summer day.

His reason: a towering pile of dirt, infill, made up of “unsuitable” materials such as soil, tires and industrial waste that has been piled on the neighbouring property for years.

“My entire house is constantly covered with dirt,” said Barbieri. “On a windy day, it fills the air, it’s all over everything, and we are just sick of it.”

In 2007, local developer Tony Gentile bought the 11-hectare property, which had been used as an unofficial dump for decades, for $2 million according to land registry records. His plan, according to the MOECC, was to clean it up and eventually build homes on it.

He built homes on one part of it, and used another section (phase two) as a “holding area for excavated materials.” Years later, a large mound of debris and waste remain on the undeveloped part of the site, and what the city believed would be a simple cleanup job has become a messy situation involving frustrated residents, the provincial Ministry of Environment and Climate Change and a municipality that claims it has little control over the situation.

“We also want it to be cleaned up as quickly as possible,” said Councillor Tony Carella, who has been dealing with the issue for years. The city has given a deadline of Sept. 15 to remove the debris. “But deadlines for getting all of that out of there have come and gone half a dozen times,” he said. “The worst-case scenario would be if he walks away.”

Gentile has been doing whatever he can to meet the deadline, according to his lawyer, Robert Karrass, but his efforts have been met by “unexpected delays.”

“Our client has complied with all laws and bylaws and wants to complete the hauling of material and the development as a whole as quickly as possible to minimize the impact on residents while still providing housing and hundreds of jobs for Ontarians,” Karrass wrote in an email. “Our client is a good corporate citizen and just wants a fair shake.”

Karrass said his client’s goal is to have the property cleaned up to build the second phase of Castle Manor homes as soon as possible. According to the website for the development, he is already accepting bookings for homes in the sought-after area. But the city will allow him to build only if he meets provincial standards.

The ministry has issued numerous orders to Gentile since 2009. Last week, it charged Gentile with eight offences under environmental legislation, relating to the use and operation of waste screening equipment without ministry approval. The case will be in court Sept. 11.

“My client hired a third party MOE-licensed company to do the screening in accordance with MOE guidelines. The issue that the MOE summoned my client for should have been sent to this company instead,” Karrass said, adding that charges are relation to screening that took place in 2013 and are not recent.

Proper approvals are now finally in place for Gentile to start cleaning the site, the ministry confirmed.

But some questions remain, including where the waste will go. The ministry says it doesn’t know. “We have repeatedly asked for information for any materials leaving the site and their location which has not been provided,” said spokesperson Kate Jordan.

Karrass says the construction debris is being loaded into containers and hauled by ministry-approved haulers who are licensed to choose the destination. The soil has been reused on site for grading or hauled to licensed facilities that accept clean fill, he said.

Karrass predicts the cleanup will cost his client up to $7 million, but said he remains committed to meeting the September deadline.

But residents say they have heard promises before.

“I’m not buying it,” said long-time resident Angelica Piro. “They gave him a deadline of Sept. 15, but they didn’t say which year.”

After years of putting up with the mess, residents are determined to keep the pressure on. The city held a resident meeting Wednesday night to keep the community updated on cleanup progress. Some questions were answered at the meeting, but others still remain, such as: what exactly is in the soil?

“I’d like someone to do some testing and tell us what we have been living next to for all these years,” said Piro. “My biggest fear is that it’s something dangerous.”

Karrass says his client tested the soil before work started on the lands and during the excavation process, and all reports were submitted and reviewed by the city. The city would not confirm or make the results public, only saying it was Gentile’s responsibility to provide them.

Barbieri says he just wants to move forward now, and see an end to the matter: “We want the dirt gone and the MOECC to check everything out, and reassure the neighbours that it is safe and secure for the kids, the air we breathe and the future. That would be my final wish to put this to rest.”