The group of owners of the Domaine du Vieux-Verger property in Sutton have decided not to move forward with the sale of the land to the Town of Sutton for the construction of an affordable housing project despite reaching an agreement with the municipality to purchase the 21-acre site for $1,409,000 million last fall.

In April of this year, two information sessions were held by the municipality to present the plans for the potential affordable housing project to citizens, which included adopting a borrowing bylaw to obtain the financing that was needed to finalize the purchase of the land. In Quebec, bylaws are subject to a register, which provides citizens who are against a specific bylaw or project with the opportunity to put their name on an official recorded list with the municipality. Depending on the number of signatures required and collected, a register can subject a bylaw to a referendum or it can lead a municipality to drop the bylaw completely.  The Town of Sutton held a register on April 29 where 492 signatures were required to bring the project to a referendum. The registry ended up collecting 784 signatures, but the owners backed out of the agreement with the municipality.

According to Sutton Mayor Robert Benoît, the owners of the Domaine du Vieux-Verger always had the option to back out of the sale if there was the possibility that it would go to a referendum as per the initial agreement. William Murray, one of co-owners of the Domaine du Vieux-Verger property, said that the group decided not to move forward with the sale as a result of the registry and the fact that they had the support of the municipality moving forward. Despite the agreement falling through, both Benoît and Murray said that they will continue working side-by-side to try and bring a project to fruition to help fill in the housing shortage that the village is reportedly experiencing. The municipality has already taken a number of steps to ensure that the development of the site falls within its vision. 

“They opted out and they decided that they will either sell the land or it they will develop it themselves, we had to acknowledge that. I said at the meeting (the June town council meeting) that I would love to have had a referendum on this issue,” said Benoît. “I think it’s probably the most important issue for the town council right is how to have affordable houses for families, especially young families.”

“One of the reasons why we decided that maybe it would be better to move forward was that one, there was a registry where almost twice as many people that signed it that was needed to make for a referendum. The project that we had on the table previously was very close in spirit, and in actuality, to what the town was proposing,” explained Murray. “Our feeling was that if the town is ready to support us as far as getting the administrative work done that needs to be done no matter who does that project, that the project that we had on the table initially is one that we would be willing to move forward with.”

Murray noted that his impression isn’t that people are against the project itself, but against the municipality’s involvement in purchasing the land to develop it. 

“The impression that I got from the feedback that I was hearing when the registry was open, it wasn’t so much that there was this unanimous disagreement with having a project. There seemed to be some people that felt that it wasn’t up to the town to be purchasing the land and why isn’t the the developer doing it,” said Murray. “When the town was going through the process to figure out what its project was looking like, they started a process that needed to be done regardless of who does the project.”

Benoît mentioned that he was disappointed with the “misinformation” that was put out into the community about the municipality’s affordable housing project, especially when it’s something that citizens are looking for. 

“Since the election, for the last two years, I’ve seen people complaining that there is a shortage of rental units or housing units, it’s common knowledge. People always say ‘what do the governments do? What do the municipalities do?’ So we took on the challenge of bringing new units,” he highlighted. “(…) I don’t think the cost of housing will go down significant. In fact, the federal government has come out with a new number that rental costs within the next three years are going to increase by 30%. If you don’t take any measures now it’s going to worse in the future.”

Murray added that addressing the general lack of housing in Sutton will also help fill in other gaps for the village, particularly when it comes to providing workers for the businesses in the area. 

“It’s a real issue. We see it in every aspect, not just the stores and the commerces [sic] , but all of the trades are looking for more people. It’s one thing to find them but it’s another thing to keep them because if they can’t afford to stay here then they move on. We need to be able to figure out a way to provide housing for the increasing population that we have everywhere,” emphasized Murray.

Both Benoît and Murray mentioned that the municipality and the owners remain in close contact with hopes of trying to bring the project to life. While the land remains in the owners hands, town council has adopted an interim bylaw that prohibits any development of the Domaine du Vieux-Verger that does not align with its vision for the site and the Domaine du Vieux-Verger property will be included in its next urban plan (PPU), which defines requirements for land use, housing density, road layout, infrastructures (sewage), and parks and community facilities. 

“All of these measures are within the power of the city to say this is how we will go about building this project. We want this project to be built and we want this project to be built as much as possible along the lines of what we presented. Obviously we cannot impose that on promoters now. The idea of being the owner of the land was to impose that concept, now we can’t. It will be their decision but at least they will understand that they have to be very close to what we presented to the people of Sutton this spring,” explained Benoît. 

“Like anybody who does anything on a piece of land, the town is going to analyze what the bylaws are and they are going to give you feedback on what you can and can’t do. (…) That same process is the same process that we need to go through it’s just on a much larger scale because it’s more than one building or more than one house,” mentioned Murray. “The intention is to really work in collaboration with the town to make sure that, in an efficient way, we get this process done so that we can actually get on with working on the project itself.”

For more information about the proposed Domaine du Vieux-Verger affordable housing project visit the Town of Sutton’s website. 

Listen to the full interview below: