The executive committee of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority recommended Friday on a 9-1 vote that Rob Ford not be allowed to buy a piece of parkland adjacent to his home.

Members took the extra step of saying more restrictive zoning laws ought to be applied to publicly owned green space in the mayor’s Etobicoke neighbourhood.

Ford’s application to purchase the 2,800-square-foot parcel had the unintended consequence of unearthing a legal loophole.

While the land is publicly owned by the TRCA, and has been used as parkland since 1966, it also has a grandfathered residential zoning designation that would, if it was ever sold in the future, allow its owner to build a house on it.

“I’m saying throw it away,” said Councillor Glen De Baeremaeker, a committee member and Ford opponent, of the current zoning loophole. “I want to do everything legally possible to protect that parkland as parkland.”

Nine committee members agreed with an earlier recommendation by TRCA staff that selling the parcel would violate their valley-and-stream management policies and its mandate to conserve valley corridors. They also agreed that parkland in the vicinity of the mayor’s house should be rezoned with the “most restrictive” green space zoning laws.

“Of the 2 ½ million people who live in the city of Toronto, you, Mr. Mayor, know better than anybody that we don’t sell parkland,” said De Baeremaeker.

Ford ally Vincent Crisanti, one of four Toronto councillors on the committee, cast the lone vote in favour of the mayor’s request. He said the land — which sits in front of a small community centre and includes three mature trees and a hedge — is relatively small and never used, as it backs onto a “massive” parking lot and is fenced in.

“There sometimes has to be a level of reason and common sense that has to kick in,” he said, adding that he felt Ford’s application wasn’t given any serious consideration from the get-go.

Ford and his wife, Renata, have maintained that they want the “vacant” land so they can “install a better security fence.”

On Friday, Ford said he had “no problem” with the committee’s decision. He added that he still wanted to buy the land, but “if they rejected it, they rejected it. I’m not going to appeal it.”

Only two or so people request to buy TRCA land each year. Jim Dillane, TRCA’s director of finance and business services, said he couldn’t recall an occasion when a piece was sold to a private citizen.

Committee members expressed concern that allowing the sale of this particular parcel would open up a flood of similar requests across the city. TRCA officials estimated there are more than 1,000 similar plots across Toronto.

The committee’s recommendations come nearly one month after Ford angrily confronted Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale, who was in the park behind the mayor’s property at the time, attempting to check out the land for a story.

According to Dale’s account, the mayor ran at him with a “cocked fist” and intimidated him. In media interviews after the incident, Ford and his brother alleged that Dale was in the mayor’s backyard “lurking in bushes,” “standing on cinder blocks” and peering over his back fence and “taking pictures of my kids and family.”

Dale denied those allegations, and after investigating, police said they found “no evidence” he was on the mayor’s property or peering over his fence.

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The committee’s recommendations will now go to the TRCA’s full authority, to be voted on June 22. It is very unusual for the authority to change a recommendation put forth by the committee, Dillane said.

With files from Daniel Dale and Paul Moloney