Johnston’s Point: a case study in shoreline development in Frontenac County

May 02, 2018

At a meeting of Frontenac County Council last week (Wednesday, April 18) South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal made it clear that neither his township, nor Frontenac County, have the expertise to decide whether developers are in compliance with conditions set out in draft planning approvals.

“We, as municipalities depend on MNR-F [Ministtry of Natural Resources and Foresty] the CRCA [Catatraqui Region Conservation Authority], and the health unit. We look to their reports.Anybody can say what is done and what isn’t being done, but we have to depend on those agencies,” he said

Sarah Harmer, of nearby Elginurgh, accompanied by Loughbotough Lake resident Meela-Melnick Proud, had just presented council with what they asserted was evidence a breach of Condition 5a of the draft approval for a plan of vacant land condominium which is slated to create 15 building lots at Johnston’s Point on Loughborough Lake. The evidence came in the form of photos and a video of some brush free land adjacent to the shore of the Lake.

The draft approval, which was contained in a ruling by the Ontario Municipal Board, includes 50 conditions, which must be met before the plan receives final approval and the lots can be sold. Condition 5A includes the following: the “agreement applying to all the waterfront units shall set out the municipality’s environmental protection policies requiring that the area within 30 metres of the high water mark of a waterbody or wetland shall be maintained in a natural state for soil and vegetation.”

County planner Joe Gallivan said that after receiving a letter from Harmer and Melnick-Proud that contained the photos and other information, he visited the site along with Andrew Schmidt, from the Cararaqui Region Conservation Authority, on April 10th.

In his verbal report to Council, Gallivan said that while be saw that a number of dead trees had been felled within a 30 metre buffer zone around the shoreline, as well as some limbs off living trees, he felt the shoreline had not been cleared of vegetation, but he also said that he is a planner, and is not qualified to do environmentla assessments.

Gallivan also read out a section from an email that he had received on April 17th from Schmidt.

In it, Schmidt made two comments about the 30 metre buffer zone around the shoreline. His first comment appears to contradict what Ron Vandewal said.

Referring to condition 5A of the draft ruling by the OMB, Schmidt wrote “ the principles of the draft plan of approval are contained in a letter of agreement between the development of the property and the principal approval authority (in this case Frontenac County). The CRCA has no regulatory jurisdiction over draft plans of approval. Compliance with terms of the agreement rests with the Principal Approval Authority”.

Later in his email, Schmidt did comment on what he found at the shoreline, this time in reference to the CRCA’s role in ensuring that development does not “interfere with the hydrological functioning of wetlands” within 30 metres of the shoreline. “

CRCA staff did not observe evidence of any activity that would interfere with the hydrological function of the wetland during the site inspection of April 10, 2018,” he wrote.

“I’m a little confused, the citizens are saying there has been clearing CRCA says no, in the absence of seeing it I take the citizens at their word,” said Councillor John Inglis from North Frontenac.

“We do not have a role here,” said Frontenac County Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender. “We are not a police agency If they clear cut that property tomorrow, there is nothing we can do. Our job is at the end of the process to determine if they have met the conditions. If the shoreline is disturbed, then the developer will not be able to fulfill those conditions and the plan will will not go through. That is when we have a role, not before.”

Melnick and Harmer also expressed the concern that some of the pre-development work being done on the property is harming the habitat for some species at risk that have been identified on the site (whip-poor-wils, black rat snakes, blandings turtles and a species of bat). These species are subject of a process between the developer and the MNR-F.

“Everything that comes to us, include this presentation, we forwarded to the MNR-F, so they will see it and they can evaluate it,” said Joe Gallivan.

While final approval of the plan of vacant land condominium is still pending and will remain so for some time, the 15 lots have been on the market and a number of them have been marked as sold on a real estate website. Of those that remain listed, the price ranges from $240,000 for lots that do not have water frontage, to $350,000 and as much as $469,000 for waterfront lots. Johnston’sa Point is located off of North Shore Lane in Storrington District. (source – Boneliving.com)