How developers influenced the Ford government to open up their Greenbelt land for housing
CBC
One of the most stunning revelations contained in Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk's explosive report into Ontario's controversial Greenbelt land swap was how a small number of real estate developers were able to use their access to a high-level government staffer to have protected land — some of which was recently purchased — opened up for housing development.
Through encounters at an industry event and emails sent by their lawyers, developers successfully lobbied for the removal of environmental protections on land they own in the Greenbelt — a vast 810,000-hectare area of farmland, forest and wetland stretching from Niagara Falls to Peterborough that's meant to be permanently off-limits to development.
Lysyk's report revealed decisions about which sites would be removed were made over a three-week period in October by Housing Minister Steve Clark's chief of staff, Ryan Amato, and a small number of bureaucrats he directed on what's known as the Greenbelt Project Team. When some of the selected sites did not meet certain criteria, those criteria were disregarded, she found.
"The process was biased in favour of certain developers and landowners who had timely access to the housing minister's chief of staff," Lysyk said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Lysyk found 21 of the 22 sites the team considered for removal were brought to the table by Amato. Only one was identified by the non-political public servants, who signed 93 confidentiality agreements as part of their work.
Of the 15 sites eventually selected and opened up for housing development, 12 were chosen after specific suggestions from developers or their representatives, according to Lysyk.
So how exactly did the list of proposed properties flow from the developers to Amato and up to the cabinet table? CBC Toronto dug deeper into the auditor general's report to find out.
Lysyk's audit found that in the first week of October, Amato presented the project team with "hardcopy information from packages he received" from developers on eight sites to consider for removal from the Greenbelt.
Later that month, he provided to the Greenbelt Project Team five USB keys containing additional information on proposed sites for removal.
As for how the initial eight sites were selected, Amato told the auditor general's team he "regularly attends industry events and meets with housing developers and their representatives, who at times pass along information about land that they recommend the ministry consider removing from the Greenbelt."
One of those encounters took place on Sept. 14, 2022 at the Building Industry and Land Development Association's (BILD) chair's dinner event.
Amato and Clark's deputy chief of staff were seated at the same table as a number of housing developers and a registered lobbyist, according to Lysyk's report.
At the event, two developers not named in the auditor general's report, provided Amato with "packages" containing information about two sites — the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve (DRAP) in Pickering, Ont., and a site in King Township, in York Region.
As CBC Toronto has reported, Silvio De Gasperis of the Tacc Group of companies and his brothers, Carlo and Michael, own more than two dozen properties in the DRAP, while the King site was purchased by Michael Rice of the Rice Group for $80 million in a deal that closed on Sept. 15. (Both Silvio De Gasperis and Rice fought the auditor general's summons to answer questions about the land swaps.)
