Realtor says land assembly in Wilmot was widely known

RE/MAX broker part of numbered company that made offers for farms

The land assembly underway in Wilmot Township was the worst kept secret in the region, says a real estate broker who made offers on six farms a month before the Region of Waterloo.

“For maybe the last 12 months we have heard that there may be battery plants coming into the region, industrial parks being created in the region, and many developers were anticipating this in different areas,” said Faisal Susiwala of RE/ MAX Twin City Faisal Susiwala Realty.

“At one time I heard it was Toyota, another time I heard it was GM, and I heard it was a battery-storage plant,” he said.

Cambridge-based Susiwala and Kitchener-based Vive Development formed a numbered company, and then made offers on six farms along Bleams, Nafziger, Highway 7/8 and Wilmot Centre roads for $58,000-an-acre.

The offers were made in early January.

None of the farmers agreed, and a month later a private-sector consultant acting for the Region of Waterloo and the Township of Wilmot offered the farmers about $35,000an-acre.

That consultant, Canacre, told the farmers their land would be expropriated if they did not agree to sell, and the agricultural land would be rezoned industrial.

The 770 acres of farmland was zoned agricultural in the Official Plan for the Region of Waterloo, which received final approval in 2023.

Susiwala said he did not receive any information about the land assembly from anyone at the region, the township, Canacre or Premier Doug Ford's office.

“Absolutely not,” said Susiwala. “It was the worst kept secret, if it was a secret, every developer was talking about going out that way,” said Susiwala. “Many local builders are already out there, well ahead of anyone assembling land, in anticipation of things moving out that way.”

Stewart Snyder, a farmer on Nafziger Road, is skeptical of that explanation for the timing for the offers. There was no mention of rezoning the agricultural land to industrial during the years-long process of updating the region's Official Plan.

Rumours about changing the land use in that area did not start until the numbered company offered to buy farms in early January, said Snyder.

And when a Canacre representative came to his farm with an offer from the Region of Waterloo about a month later, Snyder wondered right away if someone leaked information about plans the region and township have for the large parcel of agricultural land.

“How did they know whose farms to go to?” said Snyder.

There are six farms and six residential properties involved in the land assembly. The property owners have hired a lawyer, and are prepared to fight the threatened expropriation, but so far notices of expropriation have not arrived.

The Region of Waterloo and the Township of Wilmot refer all questions on the properties to Matthew Chandy, the region's director of innovation and economic development. But Chandy does not respond to requests for interviews.

The Wilmot farms are among three areas of interest for Susiwala and his developer clients.

The others include lands off Highway 24 between Cambridge and Brampton and in North Dumfries.

“We made offers in all three of those regions,” said Susiwala.