Opposition Leader Tony Wakeham is asking questions about a recent Order in Council that indicated government sold Crown land at Snow’s Lane in St. John’s to a private company for $5,000 an acre.
The 32 acres of land was sold to the Crosbie Group Limited just before Christmas for a total purchase price of $176,000, plus HST.
Wakeham calls that “ridiculous” and says the people of Newfoundland and Labrador deserve answers.
He compared the $5000 an acre paid to government by the Crosbie Group, to the $400,000 an acre spent by government on 54 acres of land at Kenmount Crossing -without a market evaluation.
Wakeham says a single building lot on Snow’s Lane has a market price averaging $180,000. He calls that proof of government “being fast and loose with taxpayers’ land and cash with no accountability whatsoever.”
Land in question is land-locked says Minister, half is protected wetland
Transportation Minister Fred Hutton says the land in question was expropriated from Bernard Parsons, the maternal grandfather of the Crosbies and is not of use to government since half of the land in question is a protected wetland, and the other half is landlocked, with no access allowed from the Outer Ring Road or Snow’s Lane.
He says the family in question approached government to buy the land back and it was agreed, with a price set by a third party assessment of the value of the property.
