Larry Thomas said he had a simple wish: to sever his multi-generational family property into three 50-foot lots so that he could sell the land surrounding his home and live out his golden years without having to worry about maintaining the foliage in his yard on Walmer Road.
Thomas’s family has owned 41 Walmer Rd. for nearly 80 years. Now, aging, sick and walking with a cane, Thomas sought to sever his lot when maintaining it became too overwhelming.
Initially, a Committee of Adjustment approved this request. Later, the Town of Richmond Hill’s planning department discovered that the low-lying area of Thomas’s lot is delineated regulatory flood plain, which should be conveyed to the town according to the official plan. As a result, Thomas would have to give the town the deed to nearly 40 per cent of the land.
Thomas is extremely unhappy that he would not be able to make money off of land his family has lived on since the 1930s. “It’s just wrong,” he said.
“I get where we’re going green and we’re all trying to do everything for the community, but I just don’t understand how anybody could approach anybody and ask to take their land away without compensation,” said Lisa Sawyer, Thomas’s neighbour.
At a recent Richmond Hill Town Council meeting, the town voted to pay Thomas $13,000 per severed lot — a total of $26,000 — in order to potentially create a park out of the land. Not all members of council were on board with this.
“Passing the motion the way it is will create an enormous precedent,” said councillor David West. “It totally undermines our official plan.”
Town staff is now working with Thomas to determine the fate of the land. He says he’s concerned that the town will not maintain the property as well as he has.
“My property is not flooding — it has never flooded,” he said. “However, they somehow insist that this is hazard land, and therefore they have a right to take it and let it turn into actual hazard land.”
