Brampton UPtowns at Heart Lake | ?m | 4s | VANDYK

random said:
Negative PR lol, Vandyk has already tarnished their reputation as a builder that provides quality in a timely manner. A quick google search should sway any potential buyers from working with them. It’s unfortunate, hopefully they don’t cancel though.
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😂 when I read those Google reviews, I wonder what lead me to buying from them
 
jbaa1 said:
What’s the benefit of delaying cancellation? Holding on to cash to use for future projects?
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I feel they are waiting to sell the heartlake collection. Once all units are sold, they will announce it. The benefits is those units they sold for $500k something back than they will now sell for $900k. They might cancel the project, wait a year or 2 and some how they magically have the resources to build again when the prices of home went up and will put the same units up for sale. 🙄 I just don't know how this is legal.
 
How YOU doin'? said:
I feel they are waiting to sell the heartlake collection. Once all units are sold, they will announce it. The benefits is those units they sold for $500k something back than they will now sell for $900k. They might cancel the project, wait a year or 2 and some how they magically have the resources to build again when the prices of home went up and will put the same units up for sale. 🙄 I just don't know how this is legal.
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Is this legal? If they do that, can we sue?
 
jbaa1 said:
Is this legal? If they do that, can we sue?
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considering they have cancelled projects in the past, I don't think so. Builder can always say they didn't have enough resources, pandemic, cost of materials etc so wasn't able to deliver and didn't want to keep the buyers waiting for long so decided to give a refund. To sue is difficult as the builders have their reasons to cancel even though it's not fair to buyer. I would say if they do, get as many news reporters out as possible Toronto sun, cp24 etc and state how the cancellation impacted the buyer. If they want to get rid of us as customers, lets go with a bang so they can never forget us. I have seen big business lose a lot of investors over bad publicity to the point they shut down. We would lose close to half a million in profit if they cancel. The $500k unit back than is close to $1M now so they can't just think here's your $60,000 or what ever and go when I could have made $500k. Like hell nah, I'm going with a bang. I would tell the news reporters. Like there is house shortage, how would the government allowing builders to cancel projects help this? Why isn't there a penalty for builders that cancel projects? Like you wasted the city's time to get permit only to cancel ? And what took them so long to cancel? Why did they wait until the units for their other project got sold to cancel? What law does the government have that protect the buyer? With the economy cost now, the money I would get back isn't enough to re entre the market so what am I suppose to do?
 
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How YOU doin'? said:
considering they have cancelled projects in the past, I don't think so. Builder can always say they didn't have enough resources, pandemic, cost of materials etc so wasn't able to deliver and didn't want to keep the buyers waiting for long so decided to give a refund. To sue is difficult as the builders have their reasons to cancel even though it's not fair to buyer. I would say if they do, get as many news reporters out as possible Toronto sun, cp24 etc and state how the cancellation impacted the buyer. If they want to get rid of us as customers, it's go with a bang so they can never forget us. I have seen big business lose a lot of investors over bad publicity to the point they shut down. We would lose close to half a million in profit if they cancel. The $500k unit back than is close to $1M now so they can't just think here's your $60,000 or what ever and go when I could have made $500k. Like hell nah, I'm going with a bang. I would tell the news reporters. Like there is house shortage, how would the government allowing builders to cancel projects help this? Why isn't there a penalty for builders that cancel projects? Like you wasted the city's time to get permit only to cancel ? And what took them so long to cancel? Why did they wait until the units for their own project got sold to cancel? What law does the government have that protect the buyer? With the economy cost now, the money I would get back isn't enough to re entre the market so what am I suppose to do?
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Agreed.

We should definitely go to media as a group when they finally do send those cancellation letters.

Is there anyway we can threaten Vandyk with this, so that they think twice before cancelling? With threat of such a negative PR situation, they may decide to just proceed with the project, for the sake of their future image and projects

Thoughts?
 
One red flag pointing to financial issues with Vandyk was when they applied to defer Development fees that was due when they started excavation in 2020. These deferral only applies to Non-profit housing, hence the applicant was denied. Their application for the deferral was filled with excuses on why the project was delayed. The city response was: you're a big builder, you should have done your due diligence on the land and planned accordingly considering you've had the land for a very long. application denied.

I wonder if they were able to pay the money or they still own the city

 
Here's the response:
  • Vandyk Properties (“Developer”) is a privately owned real estate development company and is in the process of constructing a 342-unit stacked townhouse development on its land.
  • At its meeting on November 18, 2020, Committee of Council received a delegation from the Developer requesting that consideration be given to defer the payment of development charges until such time that the construction is above-grade.
  • This type of request for a DC deferral is rare, given that the project is a for-profit residential townhouse development.
  • Historically, Council has only provided DC deferrals to projects that provide some form of public benefit (e.g. – long term care home provided by Holland Christian Homes, affordable rental building provided by the Bramalea Christian Fellowship).
  • Granting this request to Vandyk would effectively result in the City providing financing services to a for-profit developer, which is more appropriately provided through the banking industry. In addition, deferring development charges would reduce the City’s cash flow available to fund growth projects and would set a precedent for future developers to request the same financial benefit.
 
Extract:
In the Developer’s letter of request to the Chief Administrative Officer, they explain that their development lands contain deep deposits of peat. As a result, the peat deposits
must be removed from the lands and replaced by an engineered fill material thereby increasing the site remediation costs.

While this is true that there are additional costs to be incurred by the Developer due to the peat deposits, it should be noted by Committee that as part of any due diligence completed prior to the purchase and development of land, the applicant should hire an engineering firm to advise on such geotechnical issues. The due diligence exercise is even more pertinent in this case as the lands are adjacent to a natural feature, that being a wetland.

Additionally, the Developer included a PowerPoint presentation as part of their delegation that outlined the peat issue. It is noted on Slide 7 of the presentation that they retained the engineering firm of WSP to examine the peat issue. The geotechnical investigation undertaken by WSP for the Developer is dated March 2017. That would have provided the Developer with ample time to examine their pro-forma to include the site remediation costs and to analyze the overall financial feasibility of the project.
 
gquest said:
Extract:
In the Developer’s letter of request to the Chief Administrative Officer, they explain that their development lands contain deep deposits of peat. As a result, the peat deposits
must be removed from the lands and replaced by an engineered fill material thereby increasing the site remediation costs.

While this is true that there are additional costs to be incurred by the Developer due to the peat deposits, it should be noted by Committee that as part of any due diligence completed prior to the purchase and development of land, the applicant should hire an engineering firm to advise on such geotechnical issues. The due diligence exercise is even more pertinent in this case as the lands are adjacent to a natural feature, that being a wetland.

Additionally, the Developer included a PowerPoint presentation as part of their delegation that outlined the peat issue. It is noted on Slide 7 of the presentation that they retained the engineering firm of WSP to examine the peat issue. The geotechnical investigation undertaken by WSP for the Developer is dated March 2017. That would have provided the Developer with ample time to examine their pro-forma to include the site remediation costs and to analyze the overall financial feasibility of the project.
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You have lots of great info, have you tried contacting Domenic and John Vandyk directly with these?

I’m curious to know their responses. Do you have their emails?
 
gquest said:
Extract:
In the Developer’s letter of request to the Chief Administrative Officer, they explain that their development lands contain deep deposits of peat. As a result, the peat deposits
must be removed from the lands and replaced by an engineered fill material thereby increasing the site remediation costs.

While this is true that there are additional costs to be incurred by the Developer due to the peat deposits, it should be noted by Committee that as part of any due diligence completed prior to the purchase and development of land, the applicant should hire an engineering firm to advise on such geotechnical issues. The due diligence exercise is even more pertinent in this case as the lands are adjacent to a natural feature, that being a wetland.

Additionally, the Developer included a PowerPoint presentation as part of their delegation that outlined the peat issue. It is noted on Slide 7 of the presentation that they retained the engineering firm of WSP to examine the peat issue. The geotechnical investigation undertaken by WSP for the Developer is dated March 2017. That would have provided the Developer with ample time to examine their pro-forma to include the site remediation costs and to analyze the overall financial feasibility of the project.
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You should reach out to them with this info and ask what’s going on, as well the other inside info you have.

dzita@vandyk.com - Domenic
johnny@vandyk.com - John (owner)
awong@vandyk.com - Andrea (marketing)
awong@vandyk.com - Joanne (sales)
 
jbaa1 said:
You have lots of great info, have you tried contacting Domenic and John Vandyk directly with these?

I’m curious to know their responses. Do you have their emails?
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Wow….dated March 2017…so they knew well in advance there were issues but still went ahead sold out of the condos….does he think we are going to pay for their error? Developers like to sweep things under the carpet and hope nobody figures it out. These guys are unbelievable. Sooooo now what?
 
The first posts of this forum was so hopeful and promising.. fast forward to page 56 it's just sorrow lol. Can't help but laugh about it a little bit. We gotta lighten up a bit, it's all out of our control anyway, and badluck with Covid. I'm sure if Covid didn't happen, the project would have been completed. Can't blame ourselves.
 
jbaa1 said:
The first posts of this forum was so hopeful and promising.. fast forward to page 56 it's just sorrow lol. Can't help but laugh about it a little bit. We gotta lighten up a bit, it's all out of our control anyway, and badluck with Covid. I'm sure if Covid didn't happen, the project would have been completed. Can't blame ourselves.
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I agree, no one’s sure that they’ll cancel.
 
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