Annapolis Group is suing the City of Halifax for approximately $120 million in damages over its rejected proposal for development of land in the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes area, the group announced Tuesday.
Annapolis says the city “effectively expropriated — without compensation — Annapolis’ Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes lands.”
READ MORE: Council rejects development in Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes
City council rejected Annapolis’ proposal to develop 390 hectares in September. The Annapolis land is adjacent to more than 1,600 hectares of land that’s protected by the province as a wilderness reserve.
The proposed development was rejected after staff recommendations released in August showed strong opposition to a June facilitator’s report on proposed boundaries for the park. Annapolis says that rejection was done in bad faith.
“Since HRM is not going to allow us to develop our lands, we are simply asking to receive fair compensation from the municipality for the lands that have been effectively expropriated,” Annapolis Group vice-chair Rob Gillis said in a release.
“We don’t want to be in this position, but HRM has given us no other choice.”
READ MORE: Halifax council to consider starting over on Blue Mountain – Birch Cove Lakes Regional Park
According to Annapolis, the claim alleges:
- HRM has on a de facto basis expropriated the Annapolis lands without fair compensation.
- HRM has abused its authority for the purposes of harming Annapolis including acting in bad faith and discriminating against Annapolis.
- HRM has been unjustly enriched at the expense of Annapolis.
Annapolis says the city has “dragged out this process” over the past 10 years and “ignored the facilitator’s report” in refusing their request to start the secondary planning of their land.
“And we made many compromises and we tried to find middle ground for all the parties involved. At the end of that process, HRM refused to allow us to develop our land and effectively expropriated our land without paying us compensation,” Gillis said Tuesday.
READ MORE: Mayor Savage weighs in on protecting Birch Cove Blue Mountain area
“We’re very disappointed in HRM that we’ve arrived at this position today after 10 years of negotiating in good faith with HRM.”
One of the compromises offered by Annapolis was more than 120 hectares of parkland to increase the current provincially protected land, providing buffers for the reserve.
Halifax spokesperson Brendan Elliott disputed Gillis’ claims that the proposal rejection was done in good faith, saying in an emailed statement that “there has been lots of discussion in good faith on both sides.”
“Unfortunately, there is a fundamental disagreement over both the value of the lands and differing visions with respect to what a park would look like,” Elliott said.
“At this point the park as conceived in the Planning Strategy is simply an aspiration, although the municipality continues to explore all options to make a park in this area a reality.”
Raymond Plourde, wilderness coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre, an advocacy organization, said he is doubtful about Gillis’ land value claim.
“What it really is is a fundamental conflict between private land developers who bank land in the expectation they’ll be to cash out — buy cheap, sit on it for years and then do a big build-out — or the city making decisions about where we develop or don’t develop,” he said.
According to Elliott, the government has, so far, not bought any land back and the Halifax Regional Council would have to approve any sales.
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