Residents fight developer with 72-year-old document

By: The Mississauga News
 
September 24, 2007 - Hamilton residents living near the Chedoke browlands are hoping a document from 1935 will force a Mississauga developers will scale down plans to develop the area.
Ron Starr's Deanlee Management is looking to build 750 apartment and townhouse condos on 24 acres of property it bought last spring from the Chedoke Health Corporation.
In a strange twist, though, a recently discovered a land transfer document dated Aug. 31, 1935 declares that only single family homes can be built on the site.
The document refers to about an acre of land on the west side of the browlands.
It seems that, when Hamilton lawyer Cecil Langs, his wife Edith Langs and a New York City resident sold a piece of the browland property to the Hamilton Health Association (the forerunner of the Chedoke Health Corporation) for $1,200, they attached some conditions. The sellers stipified that the property could be used for parks or for building single-family homes not worth more than $6,000.
Starr says the 72-year-old land document has no bearing on his proposed development.
"As far as we're concerned it doesn't apply." Starr told The Hamilton Mountain News. He contends that such restrictions expire after 40 years.
He plans to discuss the matter with his lawyers.

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