10-09-2017, 09:35 AM
(10-09-2017, 12:05 AM)GtwoK Wrote:(10-08-2017, 10:16 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: Hard to believe the expropriation proceedings are still on-going for phase 1, but it looks like SCHERER HOLDINGS INC. and J & J SCHERER PROPERTIES INC. of 1225 Courtland Avenue E., Kitchener and the adjacent vacant parcel are still holding out and have forced the region to take additional step of, "requesting approval to Expropriate the Permanent and Temporary Easements" based on this report.
Looking at the sketches of the land they need.... its amounts to nothing, for the property owner. Appears that it is probably just to add a sidewalk. They aren't even USING the land, nor does it seem like they would be able to do anything with it - it's a small sliver abutting the road, on a property that is used to store excess cars for a car dealership, in a dirt lot.
The fact that the owner refuses to sell the land to the city in order to build a sidewalk IN EXCHANGE for fair compensation, and would rather the city forcefully take it from them WITHOUT compensation, chalks that owner up to being a real jackass, if you ask me.
What the hell do they have against sidewalks?
Expropriation involves compensation, so one way or the other the owner will be compensated. In fact, in most cases I suspect landlords and business owners who lose a small strip of land consider it free money. I remember when Columbia St. was widened a number of small rental properties lost a strip of front yard. They would have been compensated, but the effect on the property was just that they had less grass to mow. The student renters wouldn’t have cared how much lawn there was out front, and the resale value of the rental house would similarly have been unaffected.
I agree that it’s perplexing why this case is so troublesome. Especially the temporary easements for construction. I’m also having trouble imagining what the content of the negotiations could possibly be. I understand it more for what I will for want of a better term call “caring” owners, meaning, for example, owner-occupants who garden. I could imagine them bargaining over something like a favourite tree, or asking for the Region to move their plants or something.