Did you get a letter from Metrolinx regarding your land and Hamilton’s LRT?
Have you received a letter from Metrolinx regarding Hamilton’s LRT project or a Notice of Expropriation of your land?
As part of the Hamilton Light Rail Transit (“LRT”) installation project, Metrolinx, a provincial transit agency, has begun sending letters to relevant land owners who own properties along the proposed Hamilton LRT line. These letters, amongst other items, introduce the fact that Metrolinx requires (1) legal ownership of all or a part of your land, or (2) a temporary easement of part of your lands, or (3) a combination of both items 1 and 2. Metrolinx requires these interests in order to complete construction of the LRT based on current designs.
If you have received one of these letters, it is important for you to know that the letter represents the beginning of steps that Metrolinx will take in order to expropriate your land. Expropriation is a formal process outlined in the Ontario Expropriations Act which allows the government, or agents of the government, to take land owned by private entities without their consent. The government and their agents are required to provide private entities with the market value of the property as compensation in exchange for such taking, but market value is not necessarily the price that someone would pay for the property on the open market.
The letter you may have received is the first step that Metrolinx takes in order to “take” lands in preparation for the LRT project. Essentially, the letter is an invitation to the land owner to consent to sell the lands to Metrolinx for a monetary value, similar to any unsolicited offer to purchase you may receive in the mail. However, what the letter is likely not to explain is that Metrolinx is an agent for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and has the right to take the land under the Expropriations Act. By having a private land owner consent to the sale of their property, it saves Metrolinx from the time and money associated with proceeding under the process outlined in the Expropriations Act.
The letter will provide you with details on the parts of land to be purchased outright or temporarily acquired, and a breakdown of the compensation that Metrolinx is offering in exchange for consenting to such sale. If you fail to respond to the letter in a set amount of time, such as 30 days, or if you notify Metrolinx that you do not consent to the sale, Metrolinx is likely to initiate expropriation proceedings, which may result in the taking of your land for potentially less than the amount offered in the initial letter.
If you notify Metrolinx that you wish to accept the offer, they are going to send you an Agreement of Purchase and Sale for the respective lands, if they have not attached it to the initial letter already. It is important for you to understand the contents of that agreement, including the effect it will have on your ability to access the lands moving forward.
Further, as a private land owner, you have rights under the Expropriations Act to various forms of compensation that may not be provided to you in the Agreement of Purchase and Sale initially offered to you by Metrolinx. In addition to compensation for the market value of the land, you may have the right to additional compensation for a decrease in the value of your land, or a reimbursement for any loss of income created by the impact of an expropriation on your place of business. Whereas these forms of compensation may not appear in the initial offer from Metrolinx, they may be acquired as part of the more regulated negotiations that occur under the Expropriations Act.
The lawyers in our Business Law Group have already handled many of these interactions with Metrolinx, and we want to continue to ensure that our fellow Hamiltonians remain informed about what Metrolinx is asking of you.
Read everything that Metrolinx provides you in order to fully understand what is being offered, but if you are hesitant or have questions about the information or process, we would be happy to assist where we can. The lawyers in our Business Law Group can walk you through the terms of the initial Agreement of Purchase and Sale, highlight the rights you have under the Expropriations Act, and assist you with navigating the formal expropriation process if you are unhappy with the terms of Metrolinx’s initial offer.
This article was originally published by The Hamilton Spectator.
