Zampino ordered a rush on Contrecoeur deal, city lawyer says

A lawyer working for the city of Montreal testified on Wednesday he was told there was a rush for the city to approve the land transaction that’s at the heart of the Contrecoeur fraud trial.

The message to hurry up, lawyer Philippe Gagnier said, was passed on to him by a top bureaucrat working for the city, who said it came from Frank Zampino, then the No. 2 politician at city hall.

The city’s real-estate agency, Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), sold the tract of land known as Faubourg Contrecoeur for housing development to Construction Frank Catania et Associés for $4.4 million in 2007, though its municipal assessment was $31 million.

Gagnier oversaw the drafting of a sales deed transferring the land in east-end Montreal from the city to the SHDM, which in turn sold it to the construction firm after holding a call for proposals. Aspects of the transaction were unusual, Gagnier said.

He testified he was told by the then-director of corporate affairs at the city, Robert Cassius de Linval, that there was a desire for the project to move ahead quickly and that it was an order from Zampino.

Under cross-examination from Zampino’s lawyer, Gagnier said he didn’t know where Cassius de Linval had got that information.

Zampino, who faces charges of fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust, is on trial with the former head of Construction Frank Catania et Associés, Paolo Catania, and four former company executives. They were arrested in 2012. For the Contrecoeur project, the city introduced a new category of housing that qualified a developer for financial contributions, Gagnier also revealed in his testimony.

The city already provided financial incentives to developers building a minimum number of affordable or social housing units in their projects.

The city created a new category, he said — “family units.”

To receive financial incentives for family units, a project had to be large — at least 1,000 residential units — and at least 60 per cent had to be family units.

Gagnier said he doesn’t know what distinguishes a “family unit” from any other residential unit.

He added that the Contrecoeur project was, to his knowledge, the only one that qualified for financial contributions with “family units.”