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Town of Orangeville sells former railway land

February 29, 2024   ·   1 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER

Orangeville’s sale of former rail spur land will be final late next month.

The section to be sold is an elbow of the former Orangeville-Brampton Railway that begins where it crossed Centennial Road and ends at Robb Boulevard.

Quality Cheese Inc., which is part of numbered company 2391110 Ontario Inc., signed back an agreement of purchase and sale (APS) with the municipality to acquire the closed rail spur lands behind the properties 40 to 50 Centennial Road.

The sale of the land as is to 2391110 Ontario Inc. will close on March 21.

The agreement requires an appraisal of the land to be obtained and provides that council may sell the land for less than the fair market value if, in the opinion of council, it is in the best interest of the town. And the land has to be declared surplus at a public meeting.

The town obtained a June 15, 2023, appraisal of the lands from Blake, Matlock, and Marshall Ltd. that valued the parcel at $1.045 million.

On Oct. 16, 2023, council passed a resolution that declared the closed rail spur as surplus to the needs of the municipality and directed staff to continue negotiations with potential buyers.

But the sale hasn’t impressed everybody in Orangeville’s business community.

Leonard Piccininni of The Taylor Group said he’s waited close to a year to possibly get access to the back of the company’s Commerce Road location.

“Despite expressing interest in the rail spur land, we were not afforded the opportunity to put a bid on the property,” he said.

Further, he said it seems The Taylor Group won’t be able to secure access to the land through cooperation with Quality Cheese Inc.

Piccininni said there won’t be an objection to the deal between the cheese producers and the municipality. Rather, he said it’s an opportunity to introduce council to The Taylor Group.

Their operation began in 2008 in Orangeville at the Commerce Road site. Since then, the company has acquired another facility in town and they lease two other buildings from private landlords.

More than half of the 250 people they employ in Canada report to work in Orangeville every day.

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