Residents eagerly waiting to settle into a sprawling new community going up near the Barrie South GO Station will likely have to put their moving plans on hold, as the developer behind the project has gone into receivership.

Pace Developments, based in Richmond Hill, has already received flack for issues with the 1,000-home subdivision it is constructing at Yonge and Mapleview Drive just over an hour north of Toronto.

A quick look at the Google reviews for the neighbourhood, dubbed Urban North Townhomes, shows a handful of complaints as as recently as three weeks ago and as far back as two years ago, some about this development and some about Pace in general.

Among them are allegations that the company is comprised of "con artists" who "won't honour their pre-sales and instead are extorting people for more money." One person pointed to a CBC investigation about the firm "suddenly cancelling years-long sales deals unless buyers pay $100k more."

Then, in March, the site was put into receivership, with more than a whopping $47 million in outstanding debt to KingSett Mortgage Corporation — something that will only mean more headaches for buyers. 

As noted by Storeys per the March 12 court filing, Pace owes $47,099,842.63 as of the beginning of February, with the loan agreement allegedly amended multiple times as it failed to pay up. So, KingSett is now asking the Province to assign a receiver to help it recover some of the money owed.

The website for the development was also taken down, as the rights to the domain have apparently expired.

Operating under Mapleview Developments for this particular 50-acre project, Pace has also been acccused of "unlawfully terminating dozens of agreements of purchase and sale and misleading 33 purchasers to unethically extract over $3 million from them," according to a statement of allegation from Ontario's Home Construction Regulatory Authority.

"When the HCRA looked into the purchasers' concerns, Mapleview altered most of the APSs and provided those fake versions to the HCRA," the statement, dated November 10, continues.

GTA developer will lose licences and have to pay out buyers after selling homes illegally 🏠 https://t.co/KDy6ZdP8l1 #Toronto #RealEstate #Illegal #Homes

— blogTO (@blogTO) December 20, 2023

The allegations of professional misconduct are still being investigated as Pace joins the ranks of other Toronto-area developers criticized for shady practices, like Markham-based Ideal (BC) Developments, which "illegally took in hundreds of thousands of deposits on the sale of new homes in Richmond Hill from unsuspecting purchasers."

And let's not forget Mattamy Homes, whose reputation was slightly tarnished when third-party builders hired an exotic dancer to perform at a Mattamy worksite in 2021 and filmed the whole affair.