As we recently advised, Benny Marotta withdrew entirely from the Ontario Land Tribunal proceedings on his proposed Rand subdivision after the OLT ruled against his company and sent him back to the drawing board to work with the Town and SORE on an acceptable approach.
Mr. Marotta has though, for the time being, continued his judicial review application seeking to overturn the OLT decision. This has forced the Town and SORE to hire litigation counsel to respond. The factums of the Marotta company, the Town and SORE can be read below.
As we earlier advised, we do not believe the Marotta judicial review application has any merit and that it will be easily dismissed by the Divisional Court. It does though continue Mr. Marotta’s pattern of challenging and litigating every single decision on the Rand Estate since he acquired ownership some eight years ago. As the Town’s factum in the latest judicial review application puts it, Mr. Marotta and his companies are “tirelessly litigious”.
Threat to sue Council members
Related, we have learned through the Town’s court filing that on April 9 of this year, Mr. Marotta’s OLT counsel advised the Town in writing that should Council not agree to an access to his proposed Rand subdivision using either the 200 John panhandle or the Charlotte access using a portion of the Heritage Trail, Mr. Marotta’s company would be suing every member of Council personally! A copy of that correspondence is below.
As outrageous and litigious as Mr. Marotta’s actions re the Rand Estate have been, in our view this marks a new low for him to personally threaten our elected Council members with litigation should it not bend to his will. This, apparently, is how Mr. Marotta does business when he doesn’t get his way. We trust our Council is as outraged as we are. This, unfortunately, is entirely in character for Mr. Marotta. Refer to the Benny Marotta media archive on our website for information on some of Mr. Marotta’s past adventures around the province in this regard.
We will continue to meet Mr. Marotta in the courts if that’s his chosen method of proceedings, as apparently, will the Town. We reiterate, however, our offer to Mr. Marotta to examine a path forward for the Rand Estate in keeping with the recent OLT decision if and when he has had enough of being “tirelessly litigious”.