Residents of a Thornhill housing co-operative are taking their fight to retain control of their community to the country’s highest court.
“We’ve come this far in this journey and fight. It would be foolish to give up when we do have another alternative,” said Jim Common, president of Thornhill Green Co-operative Homes Inc. and a Ward 1 candidate.
Common and group, with the backing of the Co-operative Housing Corporation of Canada, will seek leave to appeal the June ruling of the Ontario Court of Appeals that upheld the 2009 sale of the property to the region’s public housing company, Housing York.
In 2006, York Region placed the 101-unit co-operative, located at Yonge Street and Royal Orchard Boulevard, into receivership. The region was brought in by the co-operative board for help after property repairs depleted funds. In May 2008, residents were notified the region would be buying the homes.
In a recent decision, Justice P. D. Lauwers of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice quashed a similar transaction involving the sale of Matthew Co-operative Housing in Collingwood to the Simcoe Housing Corporation.
Harvey Cooper, manager of government relations with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, said the ruling was a factor in the decision to appeal.
“Given that we’ve now had some mixed decisions on co-op receiverships and sales provisions, we think there’s certainly some public policy issues at stake here that the Supreme Court of Canada may well look at,” Cooper said. “There’s obviously some differing legal perspectives.”
Murray Klippenstein, lawyer for the federation, said the Matthew Co-operative decision was important from a legal standpoint.
“It’s very similar to Thornhill Green Co-op’s situation,” he said. “We will certainly refer to the court decision on the co-op, which refused the sale, and we will point to it as a precedent.”
With hundreds of requests for appeal made each year, Klippenstein said it would likely take several months before they would learn whether the case would be heard.
A Supreme Court victory would help return the lost sense of community, Common said.
“The spirit of the co-op has been decimated,” he said. “The region has an obligation to support this form of housing, not destroy it.”