The signs go up as seniors’ housing faces the OMB

Jeff Green | Feb 04, 2010

Mayor Janet Gutowski conducts a sign war.

People travelling along Road 38 south of Sharbot Lake may have noticed some unusual signs along the road over the past week.

“Mayor – Seniors should not be put in forests” is one of them.

The signs were put up by a citizens’ group that is opposed to a plan to build a five-plex affordable housing complex for seniors on a property located about 1 km down the Clement Road.

The housing unit is slated to be located at the end of a 100 metre curved driveway off Clement Road, behind a stand of trees. Clement Road is located about 3 km south of the hamlet of Sharbot Lake.

The Township of Central Frontenac approved Zoning and Official Plan amendments in order to enable the project, which is to be built by North Frontenac Not-For-Profit Housing using provincial grant money.

A group including two business owners on Clement Road, Rick Greenstreet and Tim Hagle, as well as Clement Road resident Roy Sepa, launched an appeal of the township’s zoning approvals to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), which is conducting hearings on those appeals this week in Sharbot Lake.

“Property owners in the area wanted to show their opposition to the project and the way it has been forced through by the township,” said Roy Sepa, “and the signs are a good way of allowing that kind of statement to be made.”

Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski, who has been a staunch supporter of the project, noticed the signs and decided to pose with a sign of her own, which said “I agree, so I support affordable seniors housing.”

“So do we,” said Roy Sepa when he learned of Gutowski’s sign, “but this is the wrong location for it, and the way this is being done is wrong and should be stopped. That’s what we all believe. There are much better locations for this in Sharbot Lake, and we would volunteer to help bring it about if it was done in a public way.”

Sepa said there are over 10 active members on what he called the Clement-Wagner Road residents’ group and many more supporters.

In order to conduct the OMB hearing, Sepa said the appellants are out about $10,000 in consultants’ fees and other costs.

“This is a good project,” said Mayor Gutowski, “North Frontenac Not-for-Profit Housing is adding much needed housing stock for people who need it and the township has done everything right. I’m happy to stand behind it.”

There are other groups that stand behind the project as well.

“I find those signs condescending to seniors,” said Catherine Tysick, who works with the elderly as the coordinator for Community Support Services with Northern Frontenac Community Services. “Most of the 497 seniors that we serve live in this area because they want to. A lot of them live on roads that are very remote. Clement Road is close to services. Those five units will give a few people some more choice as they grow older.”

Tysick also said that she attended a meeting of the Seniors Community Advisory Committee, which is made up of members of seniors’ groups from throughout North and Central Frontenac.

“They all wanted to know how the project was progressing,” she said, “they see it as a potential benefit to themselves and the community.”

The OMB hearing will not be concerned about public opinion regarding the project. Whether the township followed accepted practices under the Ontario Municipal Act will be the focus of the hearings.

On that score, Roy Sepa said that the consultant who is working for himself and his two co-appellants has found that the township did not “satisfy all the requirements regarding assessments and reviews, and the process they used was insufficient, inadequate, and even questionable.”

Sepa said that even if they are not successful at the OMB, his group would continue to oppose the housing project.

“We are stalwart in our mission on this,” he said.

The OMB hearing is scheduled for three days. A decision will follow in the coming weeks.

North Frontenac Not-for-Profit Housing hopes to begin construction in the spring for occupation by the fall of this year.