Documents fuel feud
More questions raised about whether public money was used to aid east-end St. John’s developers
The more documents that are unearthed from St. John’s city council’s past, the more mud is tossed into a dispute between major city developers.
Danny Williams of Dewcor, developer of the massive Galway development in the city’s west end, and Basil Dobbin of Cabot Development Corp. Ltd., primary developer of the Clovelly Trails subdivisions and Cabot Power Centre on Stavanger Drive and Aberdeen Avenue in the city’s east end, have squabbled in recent letters to the city about the potential use of public funds to build infrastructure immediately outside of their respective developments.
The dispute centres around whether there is equal treatment applied to all developments and developers in the city.
Earlier this year, Williams and the City of St. John’s were at odds over who should pay for a roundabout at Ruth Avenue and Pitts Memorial Drive — an area just outside the Galway development.
Though the roundabout would be used by residents and tenants of Galway, Williams argued it would also benefit multiple other users.
Dewcor, however, ended up having to cover the entire cost of the roundabout.
That didn’t stop Williams from questioning why the city was willing to spend in the past on infrastructure in the east end of the city that aided developers there, but not in the west end.
Williams wrote to the city expressing his views on the matter.
Dobbin took offence to Williams’ letter, and responded by writing his own letter to the city.
In it, he stated, “Mr. Williams was requesting the city pay for infrastructure outside of his Galway development’s boundary. I understand that further infrastructure for access to and from the development will be required by either an overpass or underpass on the Trans-canada Highway and Pitts Memorial Drive to adequately address traffic demands. Neither the city nor the province should spend taxpayer money, the result of which would be to unfairly advantage and likely enrich one developer over all other developers in the region.”
Dobbin said there were no differences in treatment between developments in the east end and west end of the city. He said infrastructure installed by the city near the east end developments was done after the city’s own traffic impact studies, and were to address issues already in existence prior to the developments.
Williams, however, said the record shows that Dobbin personally lobbied government in the late 1990s early 2000s requesting not only that the Outer Ring Road be extended past Torbay Road to proceed on adjacent to the Stavanger/clovelly area, but that overpasses be built leading into the Stavanger Drive development.
Williams added that Dobbin was also successful with lobbying efforts in having other infrastructure built on a cost-shared basis with taxpayers’ money.
Some city memos obtained by The Telegram appear to support that claim.
A March 2008 memo to the city’s legal counsel from the city’s development engineer — which attempts to clarify dealings between city council and Cabot at the time — it appears to indicate that the province funded the construction of the Carrick Drive Overpass that allowed access to Cabot’s Clovelly Park development.
It states, “Although the city is collecting the Carrick Drive overpass assessment as applications to develop within the Clovelly Park development area are processed, the assessments are actually owed to the province which funded the cost of construction of the Carrick Drive overpass.”
It also states, “The present assessment rate for the Carrick Drive overpass assessment is $3,236/ha. The amount of the Carrick Drive overpass assessment applicable to the Clovelly Golf Course is $102,904.80. This assessment, if not paid, is owed to the province.”
The memo further addresses what is called the Airport Trunk Sewer assessment for the Closely Golf Course, which was deferred in 1997 at the request of Cabot. The trunk sewer appears to have been constructed by the city.
“It should be noted that, when council agreed in 1997 to accept Cabot’s request to defer payment of the Airport Trunk Sewer assessment that was applicable to the Clovelly Golf Course, council directed that interest at the rate of 7.25 per cent be applied against the deferred amount of the assessment. This assessment is owed to the city.”
A Sept. 22, 2008 city document advised that the city was going outside its normal development practices to facilitate the development of lands in the Torbay Road North commercial area.
That document referenced a decision of city council during a special meeting on April 9, 2007 where council agreed “to allocate tax revenues associated with the proposed future commercial development of properties in the Torbay Road North area for the construction of infrastructure required to accommodate these commercial developments.”
Dobbin could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
In his letter to the city, however, he states, “As the developer of Stavanger Drive, Cabot did not enter into any agreement with the city regarding the use of taxes to build infrastructure, as claimed by Mr. Williams in his correspondence to the City of St. John’s. The city elected to use taxes in this manner for the Torbay Road North commercial area.”
Williams said that while Dewcor is being forced to construct a roundabout on the other side of the highway outside of the Galway boundaries, the east end developments had the assistance of the city and provincial governments with infrastructure there.
He said all he wanted to point out at the beginning was that what was fair to the east end should be fair to the west end.
“Clearly, this roundabout will benefit Galway, but it greatly benefits existing residents of Mount Pearl and Southlands. As such we felt a cost-shared arrangement is reasonable,” Williams stated. “However, we are being forced to complete this fully at our own expense despite obvious immediate benefits to other developers and communities. Again, this is clearly contrary to Mr. Dobbin’s experience with overpasses leading into his development at Clovelly.”