Builder buys Ancaster property weeks before it lost Greenbelt protection

• By Mike Heddle
• Posted Monday, Aug 28, 2023 12:24 pm

Builder buys Ancaster property weeks before it lost Greenbelt protection

The developers that bought the Book Road parcel have since spent millions of dollars more in the area

High-profile builders purchased an Ancaster Greenbelt property just weeks before Ontario announced plans to strip development protections from the area — and the same group has since spent millions of dollars buying nearby land.

Critics argue the timing of that local Greenbelt purchase is suspect and reinforces growing calls for further investigation of the Tory government’s decision to yank 7,400 acres out of the protected band of countryside that hugs the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

A Toronto Star/Narwhal investigation last fall previously found at least six different developers had bought land in those previously undevelopable areas since Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government was elected in 2018.

“These dealings are beyond suspicious, and nobody is believing that the timing of when these lands were purchased is just a coincidence,” said local MPP Sandy Shaw, the NDP’s environment critic.

Land sale and corporate records reviewed by The Spectator show at least four properties on Book Road West, totalling about 125 acres, are now owned by companies linked to Jack Eisenberger of Fieldgate Homes and Silvio De Gasperis of Tacc Developments.

Those companies have spent nearly $7 million combined on former Greenbelt lands in Ancaster — including $2.8 million on a 12-acre deal that closed just three weeks before the public learned the area bounded by Garner, Shaver, Book and Fiddlers Green roads would be stripped of development protection.

Those developers also figure prominently in a report by Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk that found most parcels were pulled from the Greenbelt after requests from a small group of developers who received “preferential treatment” from the province through a “biased process.”

Lysyk’s report landed two weeks ago — but results from an ongoing ethics probe are still to come. Provincial police have also referred a “review” of the Greenbelt land swap to the RCMP to determine if a criminal probe is...[READ MORE]