South Frontenac Council

Wilma Kenny | Mar 23, 2016

County Update

County Warden Frances Smith and CAO Kelly Pender presented an update of the County’s current projects and priorities This was followed by a brief discussion of problems caused by servers not sharing cell towers. Councillor Sleeth asked about planned upgrades of the County offices: Pender said that the building itself provides plenty of room but the current layout is awkward and there is no accessible washroom on the main floor. Upgrades will address these issues.

Lowered Cost of Closed Road Allowance

Planner Lindsay Mills asked Council’s direction on setting a fee for an ‘orphaned’ piece of closed road allowance on Concession VIII, Storrington. In most cases, road allowances within 300 feet of water are priced at $2.41 per square foot, the same as if they had water access. (Total cost of this land would then be $41,000.) However because this is a backlot, and to facilitate its becoming attached to one or more of the neighbouring properties, Council agreed to compromise and set the fee at the commercial lot price of $1.03 per square foot.

Recreation Facility User Fees

CAO Orr and Tim Laprade, Township Recreation Supervisor, asked Council for direction in sorting out the question of user fees for halls and sports facilities throughout the Township.

Since its introduction in late 2013, this has been a controversial issue which South Frontenac’s Recreation Committee has not been able to resolve. Some of the challenges have included:

• Most historical agreements are vague and unrecorded.

• Inconsistency in who pays fees for use of halls and fields, and how (in kind, donations back to community, set rates, etc).

• fees don’t reflect the true cost of maintenance and operation of facilities (and to what degree should they?)

• fear that fees would be a barrier to participation.

• fee-payers might demand higher levels of service and maintenance.

Acknowledging that any recommendation will be to some degree controversial, Council agreed to ask Orr and Laprade to study the present situation (how much money in fees is currently being collected, vs the costs of maintaining Township facilities), and bring to Council recommendations re a consistent and fair fee schedule.