Skycroft proposal set for 14 day Tribunal Hearing In early 2025

Mar 20, 2024

David Hillhorst is one frustrated campground owner. He purchased Skycroft Campground on Opinicon Lake in 2011 from Jim and Ann Barton, the second-generation owners of the campground, which was first opened in 1958 by Allan and Ellen Bonwill.

The history of Skycroft is closely tied to the history of the Queen’s University Biological Station (QUBS) that has made Opinicon Lake one of the best studied lakes in North America. The Bonwills owned about 1000 acres of land on Opinicon and they built their campground on just 50, selling off much of the rest of the land to Queen’s, to enable QUBS to be established. An agreement with Queen’s allowed Skycroft to use some of that land for a shared trail network.

What had been a friendly relationship with QUBS began to change when, in 2017, when David Hillhorst submitted a proposal to South Frontenac Township for zoning bylaw and Official Plan amendments, in order to greatly expand Skycroft.

Neighbours on the lake, many of them who happened to be Queen’s professors, opposed the proposal, citing risks to the health of the lake, and not only did the proposal not succeed at the time, but the relationship between Skycroft and some of its neighbours, including Queen’s University, has never been the same.

David Hillhorst continued running Skycroft as before, and at the same time he continued working on the expansion plans.

Working with engineering and environmental consulting firms such as Greer Galloway and Cambium, Skycroft dealt with the issues raised by the South Frontenac Planning department, and in September of 2022, the proposal came back to Council.

The opposition intensified at that time, with the establishment of a group called Concerned Residents of South Opinicon, and a letter writing campaign to the township, alleging environmental impacts from the existing campground as well as potential impacts from the expanded use.

It took another year, during which time the consultants and engineers working for Skycroft and township planning staff were in contact over specific details of the proposal, leading to final presentation to Council by planning staff. At the same time, Queen’s informed Skycroft that a long-standing agreement for the campground to use some of the QUBS land was originally sold by the Bonwills to Queen’s University.

In September of 2023, when the proposal came to Council for a decision, the planning report recommended that Council turn down the proposal. The report referred to a couple of issues where the department and the Skycroft consultants agreed about the issues involved, but did not interpret the rules in the same way.

Council sided with their planning department, and Skycroft immediately appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal, which held a Case Management hearing on Monday of this week (March 18) and set the date for the start of a Merit Hearing for January 7, 2025, 8 years on from the original application for the expansion.

Dave Hillhorst came to Sharbot Lake last month to talk about his plans, and his feelings about the opposition he has faced, from neighbours as well as the township.

He said that he is confident that the reports and studies that he provided to the township provide all the necessary information to approve the proposal as submitted, which would result in the campground expanding from 84 to 200 sites.

“By rejecting the proposal, the township is costing me $200,000. the costs I will incur going through the Tribunal Hearing,” he said.

“The township told me that they needed these reports, which is fine with me. But when the reports were submitted and reviewed, then the reports must be accepted. When I provided those reports, and then the planners and the council turned around and denied my application without justification, it was very costly to the applicant and a huge waste of time and resources. If the studies address all the concerns raised by the township, then the application should be approved. It is as simple as that”

Not only is Hillhorst convinced that his application is sound, based on the advice from his consultations, but he feels that the township treated his application differently than other applications because of the public pressure from Opinicon Lake residents who voice opposition to it.

He said that many of the claims made by his opponents on the lake are spurious, and based entirely on what he calls “Bad Nimbyism” including one assertion that “Skycroft Boats were to blame for “all” shoreline erosion.”