Ex-owner of property at centre of permit fiasco ‘really, really upset’
Marco Zwaan said the publicized call between city councillor and resident aired ‘slanderous allegations’ of shady dealings
When Marco Zwaan received word that he’d have to halt the construction of his future Dundas home due to wrongly issued building permits, it was a massive disappointment.
“We were going to build our dream home,” Zwaan said Monday about plans for 10 Newman Rd., a rural property off York Road near Highway 6.
After issuing two permits in April
2019, the city rescinded them three months later, citing an incorrect interpretation of zoning in the rural Pleasant View area that’s meant to protect its natural splendour.
Zwaan reached a legal settlement with the city and sold the land off York Road near Highway 6 to the municipality this past fall.
But the fiasco has reared its head again, now with talk of alleged corruption associated with the erroneous building permit — all false, Zwaan said.
“I’m really, really upset about that.”
The innuendo was aired in a telephone call Coun. Brad Clark had with constituent Paul Manning on
the topic.
Manning, a former undercover cop on medical leave since 2003 and critic of local police and politicians, posted the conversation to YouTube.
In the call, Clark says the Pleasant View permit problem would cost the city at least $1 million, without mentioning the aggrieved property owner by name or specific address.
And such scenarios, the councillor went on to say, were “happening all over the freaking city.”
“So what’s going on in the building department? And how come building permits are being issued when they shouldn’t be issued? And who’s paying who to get those building permits issued?”
In a statement Sunday, Clark retracted remarks about “unfounded rumours and inferences” he made in a “private call,” without elaborating on the subject matter.
He also noted his “frustration with the situation in question,” calling his reaction “completely out of character” and adding, “I should not have been discussing such baseless rumours with anyone.”
Clark apologized to city staff, Mayor Fred Eisenberger and councillors for his “unacceptable response.”
The Stoney Creek councillor also said he’d asked the city’s integrity commissioner to investigate the matter.
On Monday, Clark said the firm that probes complaints about potential breaches to council’s code of conduct had advised him not to comment further on the issue.
Likewise, Principles Integrity told The Spectator it couldn’t comment, citing an obligation of confidentiality. Public reports are tabled when inquiries establish wrongdoing, however.
Manning, who has been embroiled in lawsuits with Hamilton police and Coun. Sam Merulla, declined The Spectator’s interview requests.
Zwaan, meanwhile, said he’s seeking legal advice to decide how to respond to the “slanderous allegations.”
“I’m very upset because somebody said something that’s absolutely false, and this somebody is from inside the organization.”
Zwaan is the chief executive officer of Koen Pack, a Beamsville company that sells packaging to flower growers and wholesalers.
He said terms of the settlement prevented him from sharing its details but noted he bought a home in the Niagara Peninsula after settling with the city over the Dundas ordeal.
A city spokesperson also said the municipality couldn't provide settlement details due to a confidentiality clause.
Zwaan said he followed all the proper procedures to obtain the permit in April 2019 and start construction on the home.
But with construction well underway, the city issued a stop-work order on grounds the permits — one for a sewage system and another for a singlefamily home — shouldn’t have been issued.
“It’s not something that we’re happy about, of course, but mistakes were made, and I think we dealt with it, especially from our side, in the proper way,” Zwaan said.
It was a tough turn of events, he said, noting he’d sold his Dundas home in anticipation of moving into the one on Newman Road.
“During the time of developing the property, we ... lived in trailers, in rental apartments, and so on.”
In an email Monday, Jason Thorne, the city’s general manager of planning and economic development, recognized Clark’s retraction of “baseless and unfounded” remarks.
“I can also confirm that we have not received any concerns reported to building division, our auditing office, the fraud and waste hotline or through any other avenue available to people to make complaints.”
Thorne said he has “full confidence” in building division staff and appreciates the “hard work they do each and every day for the city.”
He added: “It is very unfortunate that their integrity was questioned, but I do recognize and appreciate the apology that was provided by the councillor.”
In the past, The Spectator has reported on projects going ahead without city building permits.
In 2019, the city issued orders against two major downtown condo construction projects after the newspaper’s queries about missing permits.
The city also beefed up its rules and enforcement a decade ago, after an investigation by reporter Steve Buist revealed a large percentage of houses in Hamilton were under construction before a permit was issued.
In September 2020, with the 10 Newman issue in focus, city staff committed to reviewing land-use policies for the Pleasant View area of Dundas during a year-long development freeze approved by council.
In a previous interview, Thorne described layers of land-use policies in Pleasant View as confusing and overlapping with various authorities, including the Niagara Escarpment Commission.
“We need the time to go through that exercise and do that comparison,” he said of the review.
On Sunday, Clark also said he’d resign immediately as chair of the city’s audit and finance committee, vice-chair of the emergency and community services committee, and chair of the development charge stakeholders subcommittee.
Coun. Arlene VanderBeek, who represents Dundas, called that and Clark’s referral to the integrity commissioner the “right move.”
In his call with Manning, Clark alludes to VanderBeek “flipping out” over the Pleasant View permit situation.
“I’m not particularly upset about it,” she told The Spectator.
VanderBeek called the permit error an “unfortunate” experience for everyone involved, including the former property owner and residents upset about construction where it wasn’t supposed to be allowed.
Staff, she added, are “likely mortified” about the mistake.
However, the property, now in the city’s hands, will be restored to its natural state. The home has been demolished.
VanderBeek said she hopes to see the land added to the Cootes-Escarpment EcoPark System, which comprises nearly 4,700 acres between Niagara Escarpment and Hamilton Harbour.
“So that at the end of the day, something good will come from the whole thing for the whole community.”
It was an award-winner at a prime-time inspirational speaking contest and its central nine words come at you like a spear.
“In the mirror — for months — I saw a monster.”
Mike Shoreman, who grew up in Hamilton, still lives with the impact of the neurological destruction which triggered it, so he will never forget that feeling. But he’s learned to use it, rather than it using him.
Same mirror, different reflection.
“Now I see me,” says the 37year-old who was named 2020’s Man of the Year by SUP Connect, the prestigious magazine and website which covers the sport of standup paddleboarding.
He is the first person with a mobility problem, the first Canadian and the first LGBTQ person to take the award.
Previous winners include his friend Chris Bertish, who soloed all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. But Shoreman won in a year when he could stand on his board for no more than a couple of minutes at a time. But that was a stunning, evocative, triumph.
In the late fall of 2018, Shoreman was stricken by Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a shingles variant, which attacked his ear, paralyzed and collapsed the right side of his face, and dealt him very serious vision, speech, taste and hearing problems.
Shoreman would have to retrain his brain, so he could walk. And — perversely, to a professional standup paddleboard instructor — he lost his sense of balance.
His life and self-image were shattered but after a long period of lonely negativity he’s rebuilt, and re-entered the world of “Yes.”
Buoyed by physical toil, by good friends, and most impactfully, by seeking out mentalhealth therapy starting in early 2019, Shoreman has gradually pulled himself back into a satisfying life and into his sport.
“Mental-health treatment really helped me process the anger and rage,” he told The Spectator. “That helped turn it into sadness and sadness is much easier to manage. It was kind of about coming to terms with it, part of the healing process.
“And eventually that sadness just faded and I became used to the new normal.”
He has become friends with fitness guru Tony Horton, who also has Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, and Shoreman’s dramatic “PADDLES UP” talk at the 2019 Speaker Slam competition in Toronto has led to a blossoming inspirational speaker career. A lively blend of standup, pathos, and evangelistic positive thinking, the speech has gone viral on numerous bigname platforms.
The self-nicknamed Unbalanced Paddleboarder has written a book on his experiences, “Crash and Rise,” which is selling well at major outlets. Another widely-viewed video — the indoor 400-metre SUP race at last January’s Toronto Boat Show in which Shoreman fell many times, finished a distant last and was able to stand for only three minutes at a time — led to several opportunities, including sponsorship from a board manufacturer.
He has also taken on several causes, including youth mental health, as a public spokesperson.
And it’s Mike Shoreman — not his crooked smile nor the right eye he still cannot close — who’s now in that mirror. So strongly that in November, after an anxiety-filled two-year wait as his facial nerves recovered enough to allow corrective surgery, he opted out of the process.
“I’ve become an advocate for facial palsy, and decided I don’t need the surgery; I’m good to live the way I am,” he says.
Shoreman lived on the nowfamous Arkell Avenue as he attended elementary and high school in Westdale, spent a season on the rowing team, went to Ticat games on weekends, worked at the local Pita Pit and at Captain Jack’s in Dundas.
He left Hamilton after high school and eventually built a successful business at Toronto’s Cherry Beach, offering SUP rentals and coaching services for recreational and competitive athletes.
But it all crashed in November 2018. Sudden dizziness, overwhelming headaches and excruciating ear pain, some misdiagnoses which cost him the 72-hour treatment window, hesitancy to even speak, knowing strangers on the street were staring at his sunken face, ensuing deep depression.
“You lose your independence, your business, your social life, and you’re not coping,” he says. “It was a very dark period, so I just shut down. I felt very, very alone in it.”
He was devastated when he was told he’d never paddleboard again, but in April 2019 some friends helped him demonstrate SUP safety at his annual gig for the Canadian Safe Boating Council media day on Toronto’s waterfront. Afterward, although he was terrified that his vertigo could pitch him under the water, they coaxed him into sitting on his board for a minute, then two.
As the sun set that day he briefly stood up on his board, and by July he could stay standing for a full minute. That encouraged him to try the race last January.
“There’s a line at the end of my book, ‘It’s your race, and whatever it is just finish it,’ and I did finish that race,” he says. “I think everyone in the arena that day knew the story.”
As you might expect from a man whose “office” was on a beach, Shoreman dots his writing and talking delivery with outdoor references and metaphors: the healing sun on his face that first day back on the board: the virus striking and submerging him like a tsunami; breezes morphing into more helpful breezes to guide him in a different direction.
He still has vision and hearing issues and there are some down days when fatigue takes over but, Shoreman says with enthusiasm, life is very good.
“You get on a roll with the winds and you just keep going with them.”