They recently bought Greenbelt land that was undevelopable. Now the Ford government is poised to remove protections — and these developers stand to profit
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From Toronto Star
Nov 17,2022
In September, a company run by a prominent Ontario developer paid $80 million for two parcels of land that could not be developed. Totalling nearly 700 acres, they sit entirely within Ontario’s protected Greenbelt.
Weeks later, that investment by Michael Rice is set to pay off. The seemingly untouchable swath of fields and trees in King Township, just north of Toronto, is now on the Ontario government’s list of lands it wants to remove from the Greenbelt. If the change goes through, the properties Rice purchased in September could be ripe for development, and worth far more than $80 million.
Of the 15 areas slated to be removed from the Greenbelt, eight include properties purchased in the four years since the election of Doug Ford, who in 2018 was recorded telling a private audience he would “open a big chunk” of the protected area should he become premier, a Toronto Star/Narwhal investigation has found. Other properties impacted by the Ontario government announcement have been held for years or decades.
Developers owning Greenbelt land now set to be developed appear to have given significant sums to Ford’s Progressive Conservative party, donation records show. Lobbying records reveal connections between the party and five of the landowners who will benefit most from the proposed changes.
The timing is raising questions about whether the landowners knew the lands would soon become developable and profitable — or if they simply took a gamble and won.
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