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 Thunder Bay
Waasigan Transmission Line
A 350 kilometre transmission corridor from Thunder Bay to Atikokan and on to Dryden, crossing 136 privately held properties on its 230 kilovolt segment. Acquisition is by easement rather than outright purchase, which means you keep title and lose the use of the strip permanently.
Highway 11/17 twinning, Thunder Bay to Nipigon
Ongoing four-laning of the corridor east of the city, including a 14.4 kilometre stretch east of Highway 587 toward Nipigon under a $107 million contract. Widening an existing highway takes frontage rather than whole parcels.
Municipal and utility works
City and district road, servicing and distribution works take frontage and register easements independently of the provincial and transmission projects.
Worth knowing in Thunder Bay
A transmission easement is not a lesser taking, and it should not be priced as one. You keep the title and the tax bill while losing the ability to build, plant, drain or in some cases even park across the burdened strip, permanently. Compensation should reflect that continuing restriction on the whole property, not a single season's disruption during construction, and on rural or resource land the injurious affection to the parts you keep is frequently worth more than the strip itself. Note also that Hydro One's authority here runs through the Ontario Energy Board rather than through a municipal or ministerial approval, which changes where an owner's objections are heard. Voluntary agreements are being signed along this route, and an owner who signs before understanding what the easement forecloses is settling a permanent restriction at a temporary price.
Who can expropriate in Thunder Bay
- •Hydro One, with expropriation authority granted through the Ontario Energy Board
- •The Province of Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation
- •The City of Thunder Bay and surrounding municipalities
- •Lakehead Region Conservation Authority
What you are owed does not change by municipality
The Expropriations Act applies the same way in Thunder Bay 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.