Andrew's Kids
Team Furey's latest scandal
There are many serious problems with the story Andrew Crosbie’s kids are telling about a phenomenally sweet land deal they got from Andrew Furey's provincial government.
Andrew is John Crosbie’s brother and unlike John who left the Smallwood Liberals to seek his political fortune with the Progressive Conservatives, Andrew Crosbie stuck around as Joe Smallwood’s favourite developer. Two of his kids - Rob and Tim - are still big Liberal financers.
The company they run with their sister, Cynthia (her husband is former Liberal Party president John Allan) and a couple of others just bought land back from the provincial government at an outrageously low price.
The first big problem is the land valuation. The land the Crosbies just bought through Crosbie Group is 32 acres, originally owned by the Crosbie kids’ grandfather. The provincial government expropriated the land and more besides in the early 1980s at a price per acre of more than $25,000. Allowing for inflation, that would be the equivalent over over $71,000 today.
The Crosbies just bought the land for around 13 cents on the dollar for it’s 1983 price, or $5,500 an acre, based on a valuation that in media reports is anywhere up to seven years old. Land prices changed radically in 2020 so another part of this story is someone's deliberate use of an out of date valuation that was already rancid it was so nakedly rigged. The deal closes in May.
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The second big problem is that the notoriously unaccountable Team Furey has been caught already lying about a sweetheart land deal with a politically connected family. Now they are ducking this one completely. The minister responsible for the deal won’t speak publicly.
So far there’s only been a prepared statement from the department’s javelin catcher. That’s the usual response from the government bunch these days except when - as people will remember - the minister involved in this scandal was caught vacationing in Florida during the supposed “existential” threat crisis with Donald trump. Then Fred Hutton went on television in the snow on a relatively trivial story just to show that he was back in the province.
Third, Tim Crosbie’s defence of the sale price doesn’t hold up to even casual scrutiny. He described the land as “valueless” and inaccessible. Crosbie said that it only had sentimental value for him and his family. He even released a picture of some boys in the 1970s riding dirt bikes on a track on the land.
The land isn’t valueless on the face of it and Crosbie’s folksy stories sound like bullshit. It’s made worse because he *sounds* like he is trying to bullshit. In the early 1980s when this land was on the outskirts of civilization, the land had a value far higher than it does today. That's ludicrous. That’s why the current valuation - itself at least seven years old and in a market that has exploded in the meantime - smells like there was something cooked about it in the beginning and even more fake now.
Since the original expropriation, the area has developed heavily with vacant land nearby going for more than triple the original valuation of this parcel adjusted for inflation. A lot on Ashkay Drive just a little north of the site is currently listed for sale at $250,000 for an acre while just on the other side of Logy Bay Road to the east, vacant land is available for $300,000 while developed properties are listing for between $900,000 and $1.3 million. The land is accessible for development to the east and north through vacant land or deals with owners of occupied land. Crosbie Group may be carrying out a land assembly in the area in advance of some further development on the site. We don't know.
Even the area currently identified as wetland (the bit in the image that is shown in green) has a sizeable value. It can be donated for conservation, thereby gaining a sizeable tax credit for the landowners. Allow that the light green section is roughly half the parcel. Crosbie says it cannot be developed. Danny Williams said the same thing when he assembled land above the 190 contour but the City changed the rules to help him out. Poof. Galway. Potentially $4.0 million dollars at current prices.
But let’s put that to one side. That leaves 16 acres available for development. At current market prices, the land would be worth $4.0 million. Even allowing for cost to develop access to the site, there’s a massive difference between that and the roughly $86,000 the Crosbies will pay for those 15 acres. Yes. You read that right. This deal values 15 acres of highly desirable land in 2025 at only a teensy bit more than a single acre went for 42 years ago (adjusted for inflation).
No one should be surprised about this. As Bond noted last year, the cabinet shuffle triggered by Tom Osborne’s departure included the curious distribution of two jobs in charge of pork and patronage to Fred Hutton and Gerry Byrne. There was no obvious need to do it except that in the process, Andrew Furey shuffled John Abbott out of public works and slid his political buddy, the always reliable Fred Hutton, into a job where he could be counted on to look after things. Given these two deals, you have to wonder if John Abbott would have signed off on either or even done such a ham-fisted job of dealing with the political fall-out from such obvious patronage and pork for buddies of the party.
Doesn't matter.
Andrew's political kids have made the bed and now Fred's shat in it.
Again.