Sharbot Lake Streetscape, Public Spaces and Tourism Community Design Workshop

Jeff Green | Apr 21, 2021

Next week, community members will have a unique opportunity to have a say in the future development of Sharbot by participating in a virtual workshop, hosted by Adriana Barbary

Throughout the long pandemic winter, Barbary and a committee made up of Sharbot Lake area residents and Central Frontenac township staff have been working away behind the scenes on a project that is headed towards its final development phase over the next couple of months.

OMAFRA (Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs) has designed a series of projects aimed at creating vibrant, sustainable, rural communities. The downtown revitalization project in Sharbot Lake came about after a lot of previous work had been done, including last year's major infrastructure project which resulted in a new street scape in the hamlet.

Under normal circumstance, Barbary, who has local roots in the region, would be a very familiar face in Sharbot Lake by now, after spending six months at bake sales, community breakfasts, concerts, the Festival of Trees, and public meetings talking to people in person.

Instead, she has been using virtual means, for the most part, to learn about the community.

“One thing I learned, pretty early on, was that Sharbot Lake is a lot more than the stores that make up the retail centre. I was surprised how many people work in the study area, from Rural Frontenac Community Services, the Family Health Team, Seeds Accounting, and it goes on. A lot of businesses and community institutions are located here, and it benefits them and the community as well,” she said.

Sharbot Lake is the commercial and administrative hub not only for Central Frontenac, but parts of North and South Frontenac, Tay Valley and Lanark Highlands townships as well.

A comprehensive business survey was done earlier in the winter to understand the perspective of the existing business community in Sharbot Lake.

The next phase of the process, which will set Barbary up to put together an action plan for the community to run with over the next 10 years, is a “Sharbot Lake Streetscape, Public Spaces and Tourism Workshop” which will take place on Thursday, April 29, at 6pm, using the Zoom platform.

“We have engaged Wavefront Planning and Design, a landscape architect and urban design company from the Niagara Region, to run the workshop. We hired them to run it, in part because they understand that there is more to a community than the physical assets. The workshop will include a lot of visuals and different types of polls and questions to get a real sense of where the community sees its future,” she said.

There are some physical locations in Sharbot Lake that will be looked at during the workshop, which will run for 2 hours, including the Beach area and Road 38 at Elizabeth, Government docks and trail heads, as well as the old Sharbot Lake Public School site. Other issues to be discussed as a community, include how to encourage tourism over the next few years while keeping the community livable.

“Some people say they came here to get away from city life, but tourism is important and is coming, and becoming a welcoming community for visitors and new residents while maintaining the charm of Sharbot Lake is one of the goals of the community design phase of the project,” she said.

“No one wants to pave paradise to put up a parking lot.”

REGISTER for the Sharbot Lake Streetscape, Public Spaces and Tourism Zoom Workshop 

You will then receive a follow up email to join the workshop on Thursday April 29th starting at 6pm. Don’t forget to mark your calendar!