Belleville removes Jane Forrest Green Space surplus designation in an 8-0 vote

On April 13, Council passed a motion in a recorded vote 5-4 vote to pause the decision to giveaway the Jane Forrest Green Space public park to a local property developer for free to give staff time to “evaluate the process including determination whether options are available that would benefit the neighbourhood as a whole.”

On Monday May 11, Belleville Council will be presented with the staff report below which lists several options:

Options

If the City decides to not complete the transfer to the owners of the neighbouring land Gerald Anthony Dirocco and Suzanne Elizabeth Dirocco, the other options for the property include, but are not limited to:

1. Retain ownership of the property as a “brownfield” property and maintain assumption of all environmental risks, monitoring and potential future site clean up (status quo – do nothing).
2. List the property for public sale which would require a Record of Site Condition at a cost to the City. Further, all City expenses associated with the sale for survey, appraisal, legal fees and registration would be paid by the City.
3. Bring forward a budget item to determine the cost of remediation. This would include consultation fees and expenses. The average cost of this type of remediation begins at approximately $300,000 to $500,000.

Staff did not recommend a particular course of action in their report, only asking Council “receive the report”.

Staff suggest public notice requirements should be enhanced

Subsequently staff have reviewed the process and feedback arising from this transaction and the Policy and would suggest that if Council determines it is warranted that public notice requirements should be enhanced, the City is able to amend the appropriate sections of the Policy to permit the posting of signage on any subject property to notify the public of an impending by-law to transfer said property to ensure public awareness.

Belleville’s recently passed its first Public Notice Policy on February 23, 2026, which commits to doing the minimum required by law to notify the public, and however they see fit in all other situations. It is missing how, where and when notice will be given to the public for specific situations that other municipalities include.

Belleville’s Accountability and Transparency Policy passed during the same meeting that the giveaway was first voted on states:

The City will be open, accountable, and transparent to its stakeholders in its financial dealings as required under the Municipal Act. Some examples of how the City provides such Accountability and Transparency are:

• Acquisition and sale of land

City says the transfer process has followed all the rules

The City says it “followed the provisions of the Policy in place” and Council reportedly received considerable information and a legal opinion regarding the transaction before declaring the land as surplus during a in-camera closed meeting on March 23.

If a municipality receives an unsolicited proposal for the purchase of land, the municipality has the right to a direct sale (private sale) if it is deemed in the interest of the public.

Municipalities may use direct sales (private sale) when a property is considered non-viable, meaning it is only to the advantage of an abutting landowner to purchase.

The decision to declare the property surplus appears to have taken place in a closed meeting, which would break open meeting rules in the Municipal Act and Belleville’s property disposition bylaw.

City says their motivation is to encourage remediation of contaminated land and move properties onto the tax roll

Like Belleville, many municipalities have abandoned contaminated sites and often these properties come to be owned by the Municipality through unpaid taxes. Municipalities are permitted to allow the direct sale of land designated as “non-viable” as a remnant parcel or contamination to an abutting landowner without public notice.

Municipal policy is designed to encourage the rehabilitation of contaminated lands by facilitating the sale of these sites and allowing these types of real property to transfer from public ownership where the municipality acts as a passive owner to private owners who wish to remediate and develop them with the additional benefit of the property being moved onto the tax roll and generating taxes rather than remaining exempt under City ownership.

City says it has no need for the property and giving it away will protect it from some legal liability

In this instance, the City had no identified operational requirement for this property and had not established a budget for capital or operating expenditures associated with this site and when approached with the unsolicited offer to acquire followed the provisions of the Policy in place.

The City states that the transfer will eliminate the risk of holding contaminated land “releasing all indemnity and liability from the City” and that retaining ownership of the property as a “brownfield” property would mean assuming all environmental risks, monitoring and potential future site clean up.

Landowners including the City are liable in the event that contamination migrates from their property to an adjacent property, while the transfer of ownership would transfer liability to the other party to such extent that the City was able to through an Agreement of Purchase and Sale.

Completion of a Record of Site Condition (RSC) would shield the property owner from orders:

orders that would otherwise relate to historic contamination at a property, as specified in the EPA and OWRA, generally cannot be issued against the following persons:

• the person who filed the RSC or a subsequent owner of the property
• the person sold the property to a purchaser and part of the agreement for the purchase and sale of the property included a condition, covenant or term that the purchaser would file a RSC for the property, and has subsequently done so.

This protection is provided to encourage the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated sites by removing the uncertainty associated with ongoing regulatory liability which has been seen as a disincentive to redeveloping contaminated sites in the past.

Section 13

Critics point out there have been no identified legal issues for 53 years

Critics of the potential transfer argue that the City has held the property for over 53 years without any identified legal problems. Given that much of Belleville’s waterfront trail system, Zwick’s Park, West Zwick’s Park is known to be contaminated, they raise concerns that giving away this green space would set a precedent for other waterfront parkland under the guise of avoiding future liability.

Councillor statements

Councillor Thompson says developer plans to build a park

This gentleman wants to put a park. From what I understand from what dialogue I’ve had that everybody anticipates that this developer who is a developer is going to turn, put a park in, and then sell it.

The land’s contaminated so how we would develop on it, would be quite a situation, and if it’s really a situation that calls for that this developer not being able to develop it, then I’m think the city would be quite happy to talk to him and say look – if we do this, would you be willing to sign a document giving it back to the city which we don’t really want it back, because it’s contaminated, are be willing to give it back to the City and let it do further discussion after.

This gentleman I’m sure is willing to put it in writing that he wants to put a park there. And I’ve had people – I just answered one today.

Why don’t they put a park there?

That’s what I sent back. Oh, I didn’t know they were going to put a park there.

This land has sat vacant for I don’t know how long, 20, 30, 40, 50 years maybe and nothing’s happened to it. Finally, we got a gentleman that wants to put a park there for his daughter uh and others to play on. And one of the reasons is for his daughter.

I think we’re all serious about this and I know there’s talk in the the chamber about this situation and I appreciate that.

Everybody has an opinion and at the end of the day, this council will make a decision on this piece of property and I’m willing to go whichever way they want to go with it, but I’m speaking my piece saying that this developer proposes to put a parkland, not develop it.

If it makes it more viable for everybody then I would ask the city to go through the lawyers and say that if it’s no longer a parkland it come back to the city then the people in the future can do what they want with it, but this developer from my understanding has no intention of of developing it to make money.

Councillor Thompson

Councillor Henderson

Has the city commissioned a Phase 2 environmental test on this particular property since we’ve owned it?

Has the property been appraised by a City-commissioned appraiser to determine fair market value?

Has the property been listed on the open real estate market since it came into city hands in 1973?

Were you aware, or is anybody here aware of a survey being done on this property in July of 2025? 

Councillor Henderson

Answering questions from Councillor Henderson, the CAO confirmed:

• City has not completed a Phase 2 environmental test on this particular property since 1973.
• City has not had an appraisal done.
• Property has not be listed on the open real estate market since 1973.
• There has been a survey done on the property, but not sure of the date.

The City has no copy of the survey. I have not seen it and I did ask for it.

Councillor Henderson

So part of the process of disposal of non-viable or contaminated property as per the City policy is that an applicant or anyone with a unsolicited offer for a piece of property of this type as per the policy is at their own expense.

Part of the process is for them to do an appraisal and them to do a survey at no cost to the city. So the City policy, rightly, would have taxpayers incurring no cost for that process.

CAO Matt MacDonald

[The transfer by-law] came to Council in March. This survey was done in July of last year. 

How can it be that a third party and known developer did a survey on the City property when it wasn’t even on our radar in July of last year?

That’s my first concern – how that happened. When we haven’t declared a surplus, the city knows something about it.

Councillor Henderson

I received an email correspondence from a concerned citizen regarding this very thing. I’ll just read a quick excerpt from it, and I’m sure you’re aware of it because we did talk about it previously back then. This was the message:

Jerry DiRocco, who owns 41 South John Street, is apparently buying or has bought City-owned green space south of 41. Can you confirm did he buy it? Jerry told us yesterday this was a done deal.

This was an email I received on September the 22nd, 2025.

So what I did with this information because I was fairly new back to council, I took it to the chair of the planning committee, Councillor Carr, who indicated he knew nothing about it. Together we took it to the CAO and we talked about it and I don’t believe he knew anything about it either. And here we are seven months later, it’s sitting before us. So, I think there’s some questions that need answering, maybe not today.

Councillor Henderson