EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on April 25
Tensions are high in the heart of Freelton, between neighbours and a local business.
Titan Recycling Inc., a scrap metal business, moved into 140 Freelton Rd. four years ago. Since then, a battle over noise, dust, mud and property values has gone all the way to the superior court.
Rob Morris, Titan's owner, said his business has been through years of bylaw officer stakeouts, zoning reviews, tribunals and court dates since buying the lot at 140 Freelton Rd. — all stemming from residents living near the yard who would like to see Titan close up shop and move to a different location.
The scrapyard is across the street from Richard Bank’s home, where he has lived for almost 30 years.
Bank has put his house up for sale twice over the past two years, but even after dropping the price, he said, he can’t sell. And he isn’t the only one in the neighbourhood struggling to move out.
“We can’t sell because of Titan,” Bank said.
He said the last time he had his house up on the market in 2022, he would park on the street and watch people view his house. He said potential buyers would look at the scrapyard across the street while viewing the house.
“And you know they were thinking, ‘Who the hell is going to buy a house across the road from the scrapyard?’” he said.
Bank said the noise and dust from the yard, along with the traffic from the business's trucks, have devalued his home, disturbed his sleep and made it difficult to open his windows in the summer. And Bank is just one of half a dozen neighbours who spoke to FlamboroughToday about the issues.
But for Morris, who sunk a million dollars into the property, moving isn't simple.
"There are very few properties that could operate this type of business, and this just happened to be one of them," he said,
"I never would have foreseen it being as challenging as it is to operate here."
Court justice rules in favour of Titan Recycling
Titan Recycling Inc. won its case against the City of Hamilton at the Superior Court of Justice in Brantford on Feb. 22, after almost three years of complaints from neighbours and actions from the city.
One of those actions, Morris said, included being charged to run his business in the days leading up to the four-day court case against the city.
Justice G.E. Taylor wrote in his judgment that he acknowledged neighbours have to put up with excess noise, traffic and dust, and that the scrapyard at the heart of Freelton “has caused disruption.”
But, he wrote, he does not “find that it establishes a general negative impact to the community which should not be permitted to continue.”
He wrote that the case is unique, because the city issued the business a salvage yard licence in January 2021 and knew what Titan was going to use the yard for.
"Hamilton had knowledge of the type of operation carried out by Titan and approved the use of the property as a salvage yard before it was purchased," Taylor wrote.
Taylor's findings show the lot Morris purchased has been classified as a scrapyard since 1955.
Morris said when he bought the lot, he had witnessed the operations of the previous business for 30 days, got a licence from the city, had the fire department do an evaluation on the property and, most importantly, had a zoning verification done.
This verification shows that the land is zoned as a "legal non-conforming use", allowing the property to be used as a salvage yard.
All of this work, Morris said, was done through email because of the COVID-19 restrictions at the time.
The fact that the city gave Morris the go-ahead for the purchase, just to try and take that classification away, is frustrating, he said.
"If the city agrees that they made a mistake, which they do, then maybe we should be having a conversation and they should be opening up another area that we could move to, right? That's not so central," Morris said.
Neighbours upset about noise, traffic
Bank said the city must have made a mistake when it issued the scrapyard licence, and said in his 30 years of living across from the yard, it was never as loud as it is now.
The yard was previously the site of Park Model Living, a trailer sales business. Part of that business, according to its owner Brad Braden, included scrapping old RVs and recreational trailers.
"It was perfectly quiet," Bank said. "The only time you heard anything from them was when they were doing snow removal with their big rubber-tired front-ender."
Now, Bank said, the noise from the scrapyard and the trucks that come in and out of it is "horrible."
"It's like Grand Central Station around here. It's hell," he said.
But Morris said he and his business are still trying to keep peace in the neighbourhood and operate more quietly.
He said Titan has rented an off-site lot, which costs them $8,000 per month, to keep the truck traffic down in the mornings. He said the business also closes up at 5 p.m. and doesn't operate on weekends, when legally it could.
He said Titan has also been involved with Freelton clubs and charities, like the Lions Club and local food and toy drives, to become part of the community.
Both sides of the tension mentioned unneighbourly actions, like a Titan employee revving his motorcycle engine on purpose to wake people up in the morning and neighbours flipping off and cussing out Titan employees for going into work.
But Morris said other than the odd insult, most conversation between the business and the neighbours has been through third parties, like lawyers or the city, and there has been no opportunity to discuss concerns and work together.
"Nobody's come and spoken to us directly," he said. "Nobody's taken the time to come and actually talk to us about it."
