Thanks to a new developer, all the people who deposited $40,500 for units in the Bois de Caryer neighbourhood in LaSalle will get the home of their dreams or their life savings back.
There’s no way I’m going to start a project with 97 people losing their life savings,” said Luciano Catalogna, one of the directors involved in the new project, Utopia Gardens. “I’m a spiritual person. I don’t want bad karma.”
Catalogna has joined Robert Catalogna, André Lacombe and Mehrdad Shams Amiri in a company called Utopia Towers (9261-2175 Quebec Inc.) to purchase about 20% of a 205,933.8 square-metre property to the northwest of Angrignon Park. They plan to build four condominium towers on their property to emphasize the technology produced at Structcan manufacturing plant in Pointe Claire.
But the rest of the project has been mired in controversy. More than 200 townhouses were built almost three years ago, but roads were never paved. No snow-clearing takes place in the winter. No sidewalks exist. Sewage lines were broken and the previous developer installed a trailer connection and then amplified it for the townhouses. Hydro Quebec did not consider the installation safe and planned to cut power the end of this month if it wasn’t fixed.
About two months ago, Utopia Towers decided that they should take over the whole project to make sure that it becomes the landmark development it was intended to be.
I want this whole area to be beautifully landscaped,” said Catalogna. “I want it to be like paradise. This will be Utopia Gardens. I want this project to be a beautiful area and there are going to be four towers and they’re going to stand up strong. My goal is not to make money from this project. I’m promoting my manufacturing plant. That’s what we’re truly doing now. By the end of October, everything is going to be completely finished.”
Completely finished means digging up all the roads, putting cameras into pipes, making new plans, repairing pipes, replacing the electrical wiring, paving roads, building sidewalks and landscaping. All that will be done at the end of this month. Then four of the fifteen lots can be turned over to the borough of LaSalle to become Bois de Caryers and Rosaire Gendron streets and the 200 townhouse occupants will be able to enjoy their new homes.
In the meantime, a complicated legal battle is being waged to get 97 depositors their money back. It’s difficult, because the previous development company has no assets, something discovered by two people who have judgements against them. Utopia Towers has obtained the right to collect the defaulted payments from all the parties, a total that adds up to more than a million dollars. Those who wish to can use the credit as a down-payment on one of the new condo units in Utopia Towers. The others will have to wait until Utopia can collect the cash by calling in a mortgage that includes personal guarantees from individuals involved.
The company can then focus on ground-breaking for the new towers, which should get underway by next summer.
Note
This article also appears on page 12 of the City edition of the Suburban today.
More information
For more information about the project, refer to the developer’s video at :
Also refer to previous stories,
Police-cricket-snow-dump-operation-lasalle
Lasalle borough meeting, December 9, 2013
and
CBC story about frustrations by owners.
Les affaires.com story about the project.
Mr Ze Huan Liu question to Manon Barbe:
Excellent article. Very precise, consistent and to the point with many thanks to Catalogna construction for helping the people of Bois des Caryers gradually get out of this mess.