Private Roads to Play Major Role

Craig Bakay | Jan 25, 2017

The province will be requiring Frontenac municipalities to put new policies into their Official Plans concerning private (cottage) roads.  This will affect South Frontenac more than any other township, county planner Joe Gallivan told a South Frontenac committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday night (January 24) in Sydenham.

“You have the most private roads,” he said. “There are 981 private lanes in Frontenac County and more than half of them (545) are in South Frontenac.”

That represents 373 of the 769 kilometres of private roads in the County, he said.

“The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing will require you to have a policy on how these roads are developed,” he said. “That’s why we had this study (Frontenac Private Lanes Study) done.

“It will help.”

Gallivan said South already has 2,774 dwellings and $1.8 billion in assessment.

Gallivan said there is a growing trend towards converting cottages into year round home and many of these are on private lanes. South Frontenac also has 40.8 per cent of the private lots available in Frontenac County with 241of 590.

There are 178 vacant lots in North Frontenac (30.2 per cent), 111 in Central Frontenac (18.8 per cent) and 60 in Frontenac Islands (10.2 per cent).

He said the townships will all have to develop policies for private roads, including standards for construction and maintenance, but South is ahead in that department because it already specifies a high minimum standard.

“The next steps are training your committee of adjustment, which will take at least an hour, and then we’ll have to do an Official Plan review,” Gallivan said.

“Even though we trust our committee of adjustment, if we have this meeting, I’d like all of our councilors to hear it, because eventually it will come before all of us,” said Mayor Ron Vandewal.

New County ED manager comes calling
Richard Allen, the new economic development manager at Frontenac County, outlined his department’s projects and priorities for Council.

Those include: the brand ambassador project, completion of the K & P Trail, a new web portal, a Business Resources and Directory in conjunction with The Frontenac News, a commercial land inventory, and an accommodation review in conjunction with the food and beverage policy. There are also opportunities for agriculture growth, including the potential for a partnership with a Chinese baby formula company that’s interested in goats’ milk as a premium baby formula.

He also said they’re looking to continue working in conjunction with the Frontenac Community Futures Corporation, something that struck a chord with Mayor Ron Vandewal.

“I compliment you for working with the CFDC,” Vandewal said. “That’s something that needs to be a strong relationship.”

Coun. Alan Revill asked about the Business Directory and how it could updated regularly.

“We’re working with The Frontenac News on this and they have people out in the country contacting businesses all the time,” Allen said. “We will work with them to keep it up to date.”

“I know the County strategy of food and beverage but there are also welding shops out there,” said Vandewal.

Coun. Ross Sutherland brought up retention and attraction of small businesses and services, especially in the settlement areas.

“We’ve lost a beer store and restaurants and other services that are really important to our hamlets,” Sutherland said. “Nobody is going into our businesses saying ‘what can we do to help?’ before they get into trouble.”

“Signage, especially along the 401 should help to lure people in,” said Allen. “Letting people know we exist.

“And, we’ll try to encourage shopping locally, help with zoning issues and the CFDC is holding seminars on social media training.”

Parkland value
Planner Lindsay Mills briefed Council on the current policies of how the Township calculates the value of parkland where it concerns developments.

Essentially, Council agreed on two things: the need for two separate assessments and more study on who pays for what.