Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Legality of Kingland’s continued trucking and trailer storage operations on the Cité-des-Jeunes lot despite zoning prohibitions and an earlier injunctive proceeding.
• Enforcement of a court-homologated transaction imposing strict relocation deadlines and a liquidated damages (clause pénale) of 1,000 $ per day for non-compliance.
• Assessment of whether the City obstructed or, instead, diligently handled Kingland’s permit application and plan review for the Harwood property.
• Evaluation of evidentiary proof from municipal patrol reports and photographs showing ongoing truck and trailer presence on the Cité-des-Jeunes lot beyond agreed deadlines.
• Determination of whether the daily contractual penalty was abusive or excessive compared with statutory municipal fines and zoning enforcement powers.
• Characterisation of future enforcement and remediation costs on the Harwood lot as a priority tax claim secured on the immovable, with powers to tow, store and sell vehicles.

Background and facts of the dispute

The case arises from the City of Vaudreuil-Dorion’s efforts to enforce its zoning and land-use regime against a trucking business operated by Les Investissements Kingland inc. Kingland owned two properties within the City limits: the Cité-des-Jeunes lot, where it was conducting trucking-related activities and storing trailers, and the Harwood lot, intended to host the relocated operations once developed. Municipal zoning did not permit the trucking use on the Cité-des-Jeunes site, yet Kingland continued to use it as a truck yard and storage location. In May 2021, the City launched a civil action before the Superior Court under the urban planning regime, seeking an interlocutory injunction and an order to cease the non-conforming use on the Cité-des-Jeunes lot, alongside the usual cessation relief available under section 227 of the Loi sur l’aménagement et l’urbanisme. This civil remedy was distinct from, but coexisted with, the City’s power to issue penal tickets for zoning infractions. The City’s geographic position as a strategic gateway to Ontario had already attracted several trucking companies, and the municipality was attempting to manage this growth while keeping uses consistent with its zoning by-laws. Kingland, for its part, sought to continue operating with minimal infrastructure investment.

The settlement transaction and relocation framework

Instead of immediately pushing the injunction proceedings to judgment, the parties negotiated a transaction in April 2022, later homologated by the Court in May 2022. This settlement became central to the later dispute. It reflected concessions on both sides. The City agreed to temporarily tolerate Kingland’s otherwise illegal trucking activities on the Cité-des-Jeunes lot, recognising the practical difficulties of relocation, but only on tightly defined conditions. Kingland, represented by counsel, accepted a clear relocation plan to its Harwood property, with synchronization between land-use compliance and its business needs. The transaction required Kingland to design and construct a main building on the Harwood site; under the City’s zoning regulation (notably Règlement 1275-270), the presence of a principal building is a prerequisite to any accessory use such as truck and trailer storage. Thus, the Harwood building was not optional: it was a legal condition for making the trucking use permissible in that zone.

Key obligations and contractual penalty structure

The settlement laid out a series of precise milestones. Between March and June 2022, Kingland had to complete the architectural plans for the Harwood building. From June to September 2022, it was required to obtain all permits necessary for the works. Construction of the building was then to run from September 2022 to the end of January 2024, with relocation of the trucking operations to Harwood to be completed no later than February 2024. The agreement also contained a robust clause pénale (liquidated damages clause): if Kingland failed to respect any of the obligations or deadlines, the City could send a written notice of default, after which, starting on the 16th day following that notice, Kingland would owe 1,000 $ for each full day of continued non-compliance. In addition, upon default, Kingland was obliged to immediately cease all trucking on the Cité-des-Jeunes lot, remove all trucks and other vehicles from that property, and restore the site, including removing fill and an unauthorized fence. The penalty was thus designed as a daily financial incentive to comply, closely tied to the duration of the unlawful use and the failure to meet the relocation and construction milestones.

Evidence of continued non-conforming use

After the transaction, the City closely monitored compliance. Its municipal patrol, coordinated with the Urban Planning Department, conducted repeated site visits to the Cité-des-Jeunes property. Officer Christophe Allitt’s sworn statements and extensive photographic documentation chronologically captured the presence of numerous trailers and truck equipment on the lot between November 2022 and May 2023. Kingland did not dispute the factual accuracy of this evidence. The patrol reports and images demonstrated that the allegedly “temporary” tolerance granted under the settlement had, in practice, become a prolonged continuation of the non-conforming use, well beyond the agreed timeframe. This evidentiary record underpinned the City’s claim that the daily penalty had been triggered and that Kingland was still benefiting commercially from illegal use of the Cité-des-Jeunes land while failing to move forward with the Harwood development.

Permit process, professional delays, and competing narratives

A central factual issue was whether the City had in some way obstructed or excessively delayed the Harwood permit process, thereby contributing to the missed milestones. Urban planner Simon Folco’s evidence showed a pattern of significant delays on Kingland’s side. Kingland’s architects initially submitted only incomplete plans in 2020, suitable merely for preliminary approval and subject to a plan d’implantation et d’intégration architecturale (PIIA). Even after a minor variance was granted in Kingland’s favour in October 2020, there were long periods during which the architects did not pursue the file, including many months before even seeking committee schedules. The City had to follow up to prompt both payment of the minor variance fee and progress on the file, and substantial time passed before complete plans and required forms were finally submitted in March 2023—already months after the transaction’s deadlines. When the full plans arrived, Folco promptly identified numerous non-conformities and missing documents, leading to a refusal of the permit application and detailed feedback to the architects. Kingland’s design professionals sought a conditional permit in July 2023, but after the City reiterated outstanding compliance issues by late July, communication from Kingland’s side ceased. No representative of the architectural firm or other professionals was called by Kingland to testify, leaving uncontradicted the City’s evidence of diligent processing and ordinary regulatory review. The Court ultimately rejected Kingland’s narrative that the City had obstructed the process, instead finding that the principal delays lay with Kingland and its professionals.

Background penal enforcement and zoning framework

Parallel to the civil proceedings and the transaction, the City had also been using its penal powers under the Loi sur les cités et villes to issue tickets for zoning infractions, particularly for illegal trailer storage on the Harwood lot before any building was constructed. The evidence showed that an initial infraction carried a modest fine, but a recidivist offence led to a total penalty of 1,108 $ (including fine and costs) per occurrence. These municipal infraction amounts were key to the Court’s analysis of whether the 1,000 $ per day civil penalty under the transaction was disproportionate or abusive. The Court accepted that the municipal framework provides both penal sanctions (through tickets and fines) and civil remedies (through actions under section 227 LAU) and that these serve different, complementary purposes. In this context, the transaction’s penalty clause was an adjunct to the civil enforcement route, aimed at securing timely compliance and avoiding protracted litigation, rather than a disguised penal fine outside the statutory scheme.

Legal analysis on public order and validity of the transaction

Kingland argued that the transaction was null from the outset because, in its view, a municipality cannot legally “contract out of” its own zoning by granting a right to maintain an illegal use in exchange for a contractual penalty, and that this arrangement offended public order. It relied on Supreme Court authority holding that municipalities cannot authorize a use contrary to their bylaws or create vested rights against the regulatory framework. The Court, however, distinguished between an unlawful permanent authorization of a non-conforming use and a structured, time-limited accommodation embedded in litigation settlement. It emphasized the nature of a transaction under the Civil Code: a contract by which parties settle or prevent litigation through reciprocal concessions, often to resolve a civil action. Here, the City’s civil action under section 227 LAU sought to stop the illegal use. The transaction did not permanently legalise the use; instead, it temporarily tolerated it for a strictly delimited period (with a clear outer limit) while Kingland developed a compliant facility at Harwood. In the Court’s view, this arrangement shared the same ultimate objective as a judgment ordering cessation of the non-conforming use and did not undermine zoning in a way that violated public order. The municipality remained free to enforce its by-laws; it simply chose a negotiated, transitional path rather than an immediate, more onerous civil judgment.

Characterisation and assessment of the clause pénale

The Court then examined the clause pénale in light of the Civil Code articles on penalty clauses and the power to reduce an abusive penalty. The clause functioned as a pre-estimation of damages for delay in performance of the relocation obligations, triggered only once Kingland defaulted and a 15-day notice period had elapsed. It applied purely to delay, not to other forms of breach, and only while Kingland continued both to fail in meeting milestones and to profit from ongoing illegal use of the Cité-des-Jeunes lot. Kingland asked the Court to reduce or invalidate the penalty as abusive, relying particularly on the possibility of reduction under article 1623 C.C.Q. Given the evidence, the Court found this argument unpersuasive. First, Kingland’s conduct was at best grossly negligent and at worst deliberate: it had mandated architects in 2020 but tolerated long professional inactivity, failed to meet its own agreed milestones, ignored the City’s detailed feedback after July 2023, and continued to use the Cité-des-Jeunes lot indefinitely without the required transition to Harwood. Second, when compared with municipal infraction scales, the 1,000 $ daily penalty was not excessive: recurrent zoning infractions already attracted a daily amount slightly higher than 1,000 $ when one considered the 1,108 $ recidivist fine and costs. In other words, the transaction’s civil penalty essentially mirrored the magnitude of lawful penal sanctions for repeated offences. Third, Kingland benefited financially by avoiding construction costs and associated property taxes on a new building at Harwood while continuing commercial trucking activities and trailer storage. The City, conversely, lost the tax revenues that a built-out Harwood site would have generated. In this context, the Court concluded that 1,000 $ per day of default was not abusive and should not be reduced.

Orders relating to the Harwood property and enforcement powers

Beyond the monetary condemnation, the Court addressed the ongoing non-compliance at the Harwood property. Because the zoning there continued to require a principal building as a condition for accessory truck and trailer storage, and no such building existed, the Court granted broad injunctive relief. Kingland was ordered to cease all illegal storage of trucks, semi-trailers and other vehicles on the Harwood lot until a main building is constructed in accordance with applicable regulations. To ensure effectiveness, the Court also empowered the City to enter the property with its employees, agents and, if needed, police officers to remove vehicles and perform remediation works. The decision further provided that the costs of towing, storage, disposal, and site restoration would be treated as a form of property tax, enjoying the same priority as a municipal tax claim secured by legal hypothec on the immovable. Finally, in the event of non-compliance, the City was authorised to sell the removed vehicles and apply the proceeds to reduce its expenses, remitting any surplus to Kingland. This remedial architecture aligns the enforcement mechanism with municipal tax collection tools and gives the City a practical way to recoup costs incurred in bringing the property into conformity.

Final ruling and overall outcome

In the result, the Superior Court allowed the City of Vaudreuil-Dorion’s amended application in full, subject only to a minor adjustment to one of the requested time allowances. The Court declared Kingland in default of the homologated transaction, upheld the validity and non-abusive nature of the 1,000 $ per day clause pénale, and condemned Kingland to pay 423,000 $ in liquidated damages, representing 423 days of continuing default. It also ordered that this amount bear interest at the legal rate plus the additional indemnity under article 1619 C.C.Q. from 15 November 2022, and granted costs of justice in favour of the City, although the exact quantum of court costs cannot be determined from the judgment itself. In addition to the monetary condemnation, the Court issued robust injunctive and enforcement orders regarding the Harwood lot, including authority to remove and potentially sell vehicles and to treat remediation costs as a priority tax claim secured on Kingland’s immovable. Overall, the judgment represents a clear victory for the City of Vaudreuil-Dorion as the successful party, with a fixed monetary award of 423,000 $ plus interest, indemnity and court costs, alongside powerful tools to ensure that Kingland eventually brings its operations and properties into full compliance with municipal zoning law.