Order to pay township's legal fees sets a 'dangerous precedent' says Lystek protester

Thursday, December 13, 2012

by SUSAN MANN

Southgate Public Interest Research Group has been ordered to pay Southgate Township’s $41,185.34 worth of legal fees by Judge Leonard Ricchetti after he dismissed the group’s building permit challenge earlier this fall.

But SPIRG vice president James Cooke says it launched an appeal last week of the decision to dismiss the group’s challenge. The group has been seeking to overturn the building permit issued to Lystek International Inc. for its Southgate Organic Materials Recovery Centre. In early October, Ricchetti, of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, ruled the zoning and permit for Lystek to construct its facility was appropriate. The facility will be located in the Eco-Industrial Park near the village of Dundalk.

Cooke says the decision ordering SPIRG to pay the township’s legal costs has been “deferred until the end of the case and that includes our appeal.”

He adds that SPIRG doesn’t support the decision to pay the legal fees. “We had no other choice but to appeal the building permit.”

Having to pay the township’s legal costs “sets a dangerous precedent for other community public interest groups that want to take somebody to court,” he says.

SPIRG is opposed to Lystek building its facility to process dewatered biosolids, septage and other liquids into a fertilizer product to be spread on farmers’ fields. The group is also appealing Lystek’s Ontario Ministry of the Environment approvals.

In a Monday press release, Southgate Township Mayor Brian Milne says the latest court decision on legal fees reaffirms what they’ve known all along: that “our efforts around the Eco Park have been the right thing for the economic and environmental sustainability of our community. This decision acknowledges that the time and money we have put into defending the Eco Park was appropriate.”

The Dec. 7 decision on legal costs also says since Lystek’s interests were identical to Southgate’s, Lystek wasn’t awarded legal costs. BF