This page is legal information, not legal advice. It describes the law in general terms and cannot account for the facts of your situation. Reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. For advice you can act on, speak with a lawyer about your own matter.
What is taking land in North York
Yonge North Subway Extension
The extension begins north of Finch Station, and station, shaft and staging works take land along the corridor. Neighbouring owners are frequently offered temporary working easements, which are compensable interests in their own right.
Arterial road widenings
Frontage takings from commercial and industrial sites along the major corridors. Lost parking, a severed lot, or a removed curb cut can reduce the value of the remainder by more than the land taken is worth.
Hydro and municipal servicing corridors
Transmission and servicing works proceed largely by easement, restricting building and planting across the burdened strip permanently.
Worth knowing in North York
The Yonge North Subway Extension is a priority transit project. On transit corridor land the Building Transit Faster Act, 2020 removes the right to request a hearing of necessity, so there is no 30-day window to challenge whether the taking should happen and no inquiry to wait for. Your compensation claim is untouched: market value, injurious affection, disturbance damages, business loss, interest and the section 32 costs rule all apply in full, and the section 10 election of your valuation date still runs 30 days from service of the Notice of Expropriation.
Who can expropriate in North York
- •Metrolinx and the Province of Ontario
- •The City of Toronto
- •Toronto Hydro and Hydro One
- •Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
What you are owed does not change by municipality
The Expropriations Act applies the same way in North York as anywhere else in Ontario. What differs is which authority is taking the land and what the works do to what you keep.
- •Market value of the land taken, assessed without regard to any change in value caused by the scheme of the expropriation itself.
- •Injurious affection, the drop in value of the land you keep. On partial takings this is frequently worth more than the strip taken.
- •Injurious affection where no land is taken, under section 1(1)(b), for owners damaged by the construction of the works, and not their use, even though nothing of theirs is expropriated. Section 22 bars this claim absolutely unless it is made in writing with particulars within one year of the damage being sustained or becoming known, and nothing is served on you to warn you the clock is running.
- •Disturbance damages, the real costs you incur: moving, storage, mortgage prepayment penalties, professional fees, re-establishment.
- •Business loss, if you operate on the property, including lost profits and goodwill attributable to the works.
- •Interest at 6% per year under section 33 on the market value and injurious affection portions, running from when you cease to reside on or make productive use of the land, and where the land taken was your home, a 5% allowance on the market value of the residential part under section 18(1)(a)(i), provided the land was not being offered for sale on the date of expropriation. That allowance is payable to an owner other than a tenant; a tenant is compensated for disturbance under section 18(2) instead, apportioned by the length of the term and the tenant's investment.
Under section 32, if the Ontario Land Tribunal awards you 85% or more of the amount the authority offered, the authority pays your reasonable legal and appraisal costs, and you do not have to beat the offer outright to get there. The qualification worth knowing is that the Court of Appeal held in Shergar that "the amount offered" includes later settlement offers, not just the section 25 offer, so an improved offer raises the bar and falling below it puts costs in the Tribunal's discretion. Favourable, but conditional.
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General legal information about Ontario expropriation law, not legal advice. Reading this page does not create a solicitor and client relationship.