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 Peterborough
Alto high-speed rail, Peterborough to Ottawa
A proposed corridor toward Ottawa, with route options still under discussion and pressure to follow existing infrastructure rather than cut new alignment through farmland. No route is fixed and no land is being taken yet, which is the stage at which owner submissions carry the most weight.
Highway 7 and Highway 115 corridor works
Ministry corridor and structure work east and south of the city takes frontage and registers staging easements along the existing rights of way.
Municipal and utility works
City and county road widenings, servicing and Hydro One corridors take frontage and register permanent easements independently of the larger projects.
Worth knowing in Peterborough
The question raised most often in the Alto consultation is the right one, and the answer is not comforting: compensation is market value, not replacement cost. For a working farm those are very different numbers. Market value asks what a willing buyer would have paid for that parcel at its highest and best use. Replacement cost asks what it would take to buy an equivalent farm somewhere else, which in a tight agricultural market is frequently much more. The Act compensates the first, then adds injurious affection to the land you keep, disturbance damages including the real costs of relocating an operation, and business loss where the farm's income is affected. Those additional heads are where the gap gets closed, and they are claimed and evidenced rather than volunteered. Because this corridor is federal, the procedure differs from an Ontario highway taking, so establish which statute applies before responding to anything.
Who can expropriate in Peterborough
- •The Government of Canada and its agencies, under the federal Expropriation Act
- •The Province of Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation
- •The City and County of Peterborough
- •Hydro One
- •Otonabee Conservation
What you are owed does not change by municipality
The Expropriations Act applies the same way in Peterborough 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.