The Director of Mikhail Holdings is upset with the Municipality of Leamington over a property dispute with the municipality.
Joe Mikhail says he is one of six people who have yet to have their properties on Foster Avenue in Leamington returned back to them.
He owns three properties on Foster, and says this has been a legal battle with the Municipality for over 20 years.
Mikhail says around the 1990's, the Town proposed building a promenade and 16 homes along Foster were given a contract stating that once the promenade was completed the homeowners would have access from their backyards to the dock and their properties would be returned back to them.
He says seven years ago he went through the courts with the Municipality, where he was told following the case that the town would return the land back to him, but he says that still has yet to happen. He says he's in front of the courts once again to get his land back.
"The case was resolved and settled and the town paid my legal fees and in the legal document, again, they describe the outcome as the lands are in the federal hands, and we need to get it back from the federal hands to go to provincial hands, to go back to the municipal hands and we promise to give your lands back to you."
He says no one from the Municipality will speak to him about the lands.
"And it is from a legal perspective that if a matter is in front of the courts they should not be, but, there's always room to negotiate and arbitrate. And they refuse to do that. So nobody in council will speak to us on this. The issue is the land sits there."
Mikhail adds that the next step for him is arbitration.
"That's what we're waiting on. Unfortunately during COVID this thing stalled everything, you can't get into the courts, the delays, and the delays, and the delays on that end. But one thing that shouldn't be delayed, is talking."
He says he doesn't understand what the delay is to return the land.
"It makes no sense that the town has no use for the land, it's in the backyard of these homeowners who have held this property for over 100 years owning that land."
In an email provided by Mikhail from August 2008, the Chief Administrative Officer at the time stated:
"For once there is some progress on this file. We were contacted last week and the federal government will be conveying the lands in question to the provincial government by the end of the summer. We will then be in a position to purchase the uplands from the province and then be in a position to convey the lands north of the walkway to the abutting owners. Now in so far as exact dates this will happen is unclear at this point, but council has placed money in the budget to complete these transactions."
According to CTV Windsor, the Municipality of Leamington says they did not promise the lands back.