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CityNews.ca - Toronto's News: City Pays $800,000 To Buy & Tear Down House
City Pays $800,000 To Buy & Tear Down House
Friday May 1, 2009
CityNews.ca Staff
The City of Toronto has spent nearly $1 million in tax money to buy a house - then tear it down.
And on Friday, even some in the inner circle admitted perhaps City Hall paid a little too much.
But for Hossein Alinajad, the owner of the North York property in question, it seems like a sweet deal: the city overbids on the house and then tosses in another $40,000 in moving expenses. As a realtor he's come to understand it's all about location - and in this case that location is right where the city is planning to build a park.
Confidential documents show the city paid over $700,000 for the property, gave Alinajad another $40,000 for moving expenses and will spend $50,000 on demolition. Then there's $10,000 in taxes, bringing the grand total estimate to $835,000 despite a provincial assessment of almost $200,000 less.
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</object><!-- End of Brightcove Player --> Needless to say, critics are fuming.
"$835,000 in the middle of a recession!" exclaimed Councillor Rob Ford. "The mayor says we don't have any money we need to raise taxes ... this is unbelievable, it truly is."
The city has been attempting to convert the area into park land since the 1960s, a period during which seven homes have been purchased and demolished. Alinajad's makes eight, but the final holdout, a fellow realtor named Sam Kim, says he's not going anywhere just yet.
"They tried a few years ago," Kim admits. "But they never paid me appraised value."
Kim says he's asking for $1 million.
Still, area Councillor John Filion defends the most recent purchase.
"It (the city) may have overpaid by a small amount, because we frankly needed the property," he argues.
Filion adds that if the city didn't buy the property, another developer could've easily swooped in with its own plans - thereby killing decades of planning and the creation of the new urban park space.