SORE is pleased to report that the Marotta group has abandoned its court challenge of the legality of the Town’s heritage designation bylaws for the Rand Estate.
Our supporters will recall that in January of 2019, Benny Marotta’s new lawyers launched a court challenge to the legality of the Town’s August 2018 Notices of Intent to Designate the four Rand Estate properties under the Heritage Act.
The Marotta group lawyers first contested SORE’s application to be made a party to that court challenge. After that was decided in favour of SORE, the application was finally heard last year by the Superior Court. As previously reported, the Court soundly rejected that challenge on all grounds and awarded costs to both the Town and SORE. The Marotta group then appealed further to the Court of Appeal. That appeal was scheduled to be heard on March 30.
The appeal was recently abandoned by the Marotta group. The terms of that abandonment are not confidential. The Marotta group paid the Town and SORE a combined $170,000 in costs in order to walk away from the appeal.
In SORE’s view, the Marotta court challenge was always spurious and a thinly-veiled attempt to bully the Town and its residents. SORE is grateful for the able support of the Town in pushing back against these bully tactics. The Town recently passed final designation bylaws for the 144 and 176 John Street components of the Rand Estate.
The Marotta group is maintaining its challenge before the Conservation Review Board to the merits of the Town’s Notices of Intent to Designate 200 John and 588 Charlotte under the Heritage Act. That challenge is currently scheduled to be heard in early July. Further details will be forthcoming on that in due course.
As always, we thank you for your continued support and interest.