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Ministry order means development may be delayed up to a year
March 25, 2009, was the day Danielle and Keith Chadwick thought they’d be introducing their two young sons to their first family home.
They bought the house in a new subdivision in Kanata, near Scotiabank Place, last May and paid the last chunk of their $25,000 deposit on July 26.
“It looked like our dream was about to come true,” said Mr. Chadwick, 40, a software developer.
Now that dream is on hold.
On Aug. 19, the Chadwicks received a letter from Mattamy Homes telling them that a development freeze in Kanata West had delayed the closing date for their home in Phase 5 of the Fairwinds community by eight to 12 months.
“It felt like our legs had been cut out from under us,” Mr. Chadwick said.
Now he and Mrs. Chadwick, a 33-year-old homemaker, want either to be able to move into their $285,000 single-family house in a “reasonable” time or get their money back.
The Chadwicks aren’t alone. More than 60 other buyers paid Mattamy $25,000 deposits prior to the freeze.
From botched environmental assessments to sacked whistle-blowers, the 725-hectare, multi-billion-dollar development of Kanata West has been bogged down in controversy and delay for seven years.
Despite those problems, Mattamy’s Fairwinds project was originally granted draft approval in April 2006. Even when council halted further Kanata West development in May, the Fairwinds project was allowed to continue.
But in July, just after Mattamy received the last of the deposits, Ontario’s environment ministry slapped its own hold on Kanata West—including the Fairwinds Phase 5 area south of Poole Creek—pending a more thorough environmental assessment. The main issue is the nearby Carp River and the potential for flooding.
Less prominent in all the discussion are people like the Chadwicks, who planned their lives around their original closing date. The lease on their rented Nepean home is set to expire in June, and their eldest son will be ready to start school that fall.
But armed with a blog, a Facebook group and a determination to get answers from Mattamy and the city, the Chadwicks are refusing to wait for their house quietly.
“It’s filling our lives, it’s stressing us out, but we’re not going to back down,” Mr. Chadwick said, standing next to a kitchen table littered with documents and other evidence of their research.
The Chadwicks have connected with 17 other Fairwinds buyers in the hope that a unified voice will help their cause.
“You can’t hold people hostage for two years,” said Mr. Chadwick.
Stittsville-Kanata West Councillor Shad Qadri has arranged a Sept. 27 meeting between buyers, city officials and Mattamy representatives. The buyers have put together a list of 20 questions they want answered.
Mattamy Homes senior vice-president Frank Cairo said the builder is also frustrated by the delay, but it’s out of Mattamy’s hands.
“We feel for our homeowners in this situation,” he said.
Mr. Cairo said Mattamy is working to get approval to resume work.
“There’s a perception that the delay is something Mattamy is accepting, (but) we’re not accepting it. We’re pushing as hard as possible to advance the phase.”
Mr. Cairo said “very few” of the 64 homebuyers have asked for their deposits back, and Mattamy has received no formal requests to terminate any contracts.
He said Mattamy Homes is abiding by the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act, administered by Tarion Warranty Corporation, which obligates a builder to return a deposit, with interest, at the buyer’s request 120 days after the original closing date.
Mattamy is not legally bound to return deposits before the specified date, but “we will consider releases from purchase and sale agreements if that is the preference of the homeowner,” Mr. Cairo said.
The Chadwicks say they have asked orally for their money back. Mr. Cairo would not comment on their case.
Mr. Cairo said Mattamy went ahead with sales before receiving final approval from the city because it believed it was not affected by the floodplain issues. It is unclear, however, whether final approval would have mattered in the face of the environment ministry’s order.
“Unfortunately, we’re stuck in a bit of a political situation here,” he said.
It’s no comfort to the Chadwicks, but their problems might have been avoided had they signed their purchase agreement about a month later.
On July 1, Tarion introduced a requirement that purchase agreements carry an addendum clearly spelling out what happens in the case of a delayed closing date.
Toronto real estate lawyer Bob Aaron said although he’s usually a champion of buyers’ rights, he has sympathy for a builder that has a delay forced upon it.
“Holding up a house construction is not ideal for anyone,” he said, adding that Mattamy should be given credit for disclosing the delay to its buyers as soon as possible.
Still, the Chadwicks have been left frustrated, with few answers and palpable anger aimed at the city, the province and the developer.
“We’re trying to be constructive,” said Mr. Chadwick, “but things are not moving as fast as they should be.”
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008