Some more context - the headline strikes me as a touch overdone, but it's good to have details. https://www.therecord.com/news-story/977...its-owner/
Quote:"The legislation was such where a city — any city — could be left saddled with an environmentally contaminated property that all of a sudden would have become the burden of the taxpayers in the city of Kitchener," Vrbanovic said.
According to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the law changed in 2003, removing the obligation for cities to take over a problem site that didn't sell in a tax sale.
Despite that change, it was almost decade before Kitchener acted to start a tax sale. "The City commenced the tax sale process with respect to Shanley Street in March of 2011," city solicitor Lesley MacDonald in an email. The first tax sale took place six years later in 2017 but failed to yield a successful bid.