Legal bills piling up while decision on Sudbury's Kingsway Entertainment District is delayed

The debate over Sudbury's controversial Kingsway Entertainment District has been somewhat frozen this winter.

The appeal of city council's decision to the provincial Local Planning Appeal Tribunal has been stalled since a hearing was held in November.

But behind the scenes there's been a flurry of paper exchanged by the four sets of lawyers involved and rising costs for those invested in whether or not a new arena and casino is built in the east end of the city.

Sudbury businessman Tom Fortin, who filed an appeal along with the Downtown Sudbury business association and a group of local religious leaders, says they've spent $350,000 so far.

"Complexity is the thing that's surprised me," says Fortin, adding that $96,000 alone has been spent on expert reports and testimony.

"We've gone from a process that we thought would take a year and cost between $150,000 and $200,000 to something that's going to take several years and cost in the neighbourhood of $500,000."

Fortin says while the majority of the money has been donated by other concerned businesses and average Sudburians, he is the largest single contributor. 

"There's been a few sleepless nights about it, I assure you," says Fortin, whose group is holding a fundraising dinner Feb. 21 to raise an extra $30,000.

"This is a huge amount of money for me. I mean, I'm not Bill Gates."

The province created the planning tribunal to replace the Ontario Municipal Board last year with the aim of making the new process faster, cheaper and easier for average citizens to appeal municipal planning decisions.

"LPAT isn't turning out as it was advertised," says Fortin.

The delays in the case are also driving up costs for city taxpayers.

David Shelsted, the project manager for Greater Sudbury's event centre, says $100,000 has been spent so far on outside lawyers.

"LPAT as it was written was supposed to expedite a decision, one way or the other," he says.

"From our perspective, the sooner the better. The community wants a resolution to this process from everyone I've spoke to and so do we,"

Gateway Casinos didn't respond to CBC's request for comment on this story.

Developer Dario Zulich says the legal fees are mounting for him as well, but he wouldn't get into specifics.

"The fees that we've incurred are significant as well. They're not insurmountable. It's the cost of doing business, because we're so confident about the project," he says.

"When things are done faster there's going to be less legal fees, so right now from a time point of view, it's not happening yet."

The main delay in the case has to do with the tribunal proceedings themselves.

One of the first cases heard in the Toronto area saw lawyers question the new rule prohibiting any cross-examination of witnesses.

This legal question has now been referred to a divisional court, which is next scheduled to sit in April. 

The Ministry of the Attorney General said it wouldn't comment on this story in order to preserve the independence of the tribunal.

A statement from the planning appeal tribunal says simply it "remains committed to providing access to justice for matters related to land use planning."

The city is hopeful that a final decision will come this fall, while Fortin expects it might not come until 2020.

Either way, he is certain of the outcome.

"I wouldn't spend all this time and all this money if I wasn't confident in victory," says Fortin.