(Photo provided by Mary Ferguson).
Grey Highlands Council has approved a by-law to sell the municipally-owned portion of the former Talisman Resort lands in the Beaver Valley lands to Westway Capital.
During a council meeting on Feb. 2, the by-law was brought forward to council to be finalized. Through a recorded vote, it was unanimously passed.
The Talisman Ski Resort closed in 2011 declaring bankruptcy.
The municipality bought the whole property in 2013 after it accumulated $2 million in tax arrears, and then severed the land into thirds.
It sold the resort portion to a numbered company (2420124 Ontario Inc., represented by Phil Calvano and Brian Ellis) and kept the 59 acres of recreational land overlooking the ski hills. Grey Highlands also owned the 75 acre golf course property.
The municipally-owned land was sold to Westway for $2.5 million, with the golf course at Talisman costing $1 million and the upper rural land $1.5-million.
Prior to reaching this item in the council agenda, over 30 residents voiced their displeasure with the sale, criticizing council for not doing their due diligence and not selling the land to the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy (EBC).
The EBC made a bid to pay $2.7 million and proposed to collaborate on future sustainable development and a nature reserve.
Some of the complaints voiced by local residents included needing to protect the lands which are part of the Niagara Escarpment, the expressed desire to not see new development on public lands, and how there reportedly was no appraisal done by the municipality to determine the objective evaluation of the market value of the entire property.
Mayor Paul McQueen addressed these concerns and says they went through a process which began over a year ago when they entered into a joint venture.
“The joint venture was because we had the two pieces of land that are on both sides of the Talisman building lands that are not owned by ourselves,” says McQueen. “The original Talisman had all three parcels, so the idea of going through the joint venture was to try to market all three pieces of land in order to try to move forward with a sale and move the whole Talisman area forward.”
McQueen says in 2014, the presiding council sold the Talisman lands and the golf course lands to a company which had plans to rework the Talisman area and bring it forward.
“They struggled throughout those years since 2014 and haven’t been successful in bringing that forward. Part of the sale that we had back in 2014, was both parcels and then we ended up reclaiming the golf course lands because the company was unable to fulfill their agreement of that sale back in 2014,” says McQueen.
McQueen says the joint venture began in March 2021, entering an agreement and would move forward with a company called ThinkCompass to jointly market all three pieces of the Talisman lands. Its goal was to proceed with a sale of the property and see if there was any interest for a party to reinvest in Grey Highlands.
During this process, the municipality received an offer from Westway who were the first to provide an offer for the lands with council directing staff to negotiate a conditional agreement with Westway on July 7, 2021.
“Following up from that, we also received interest from the EBC that also presented an offer but because of the previous offer the municipality or council engaged in, we were already in negotiations through that particular offer, which there then was a conditional offer that was agreed upon but it could not come to the public light because there was a number of negotiations that were still ongoing,” says McQueen.
During the due diligence periods, representatives from council, which included McQueen, met with the representatives from Westway regularly to discuss the priorities of council and the community on the development of the Talisman lands. The discussions with Westway also sought to align the company’s plans with the community’s vision for the whole Beaver Valley corridor.
When asked if he had any idea as to what possible developments may occur on the Talisman lands, McQueen says he was encouraged through their talks and Westway will be coming forward to have those discussions.
Westway has confirmed with the municipality they have engaged with consultants, including The Planning Partnership who have worked with Grey Highlands and understand the impact and sensitivity of the lands.
“They want to work with the community, I have heard that, it is going to be them that makes that decision how they move forward but they have communicated that they want to work with the community. All developers or entities moving forward they want to work with the community and that is so important,” says McQueen.
McQueen says there has been a lot of conversations surrounding this project and homework done by other councillors.
“I feel confident that there will be certainly some real positive things that will come out of the process,” says McQueen.
McQueen says they are excited about Westway Capital’s commitment to Grey Highlands and these special lands.
“The sale will provide the ability to reinvest the proceeds for the direct benefit of all residents across the entire 882 kilometres of the municipality. Over the past several months Westway has worked diligently to ensure that their plans align with the priorities we have identified, and they have committed to a vision that will benefit the community and support a strong legacy for residents and Grey Highlands and the Province of Ontario for generations,” says McQueen.