South Frontenac Council – Feb. 1/11

Jeff Green | Feb 03, 2011

South Frontenac Council seemed receptive to a proposal for a new 2,600 square foot 10-unit commercial storage facility on the two-acre site of the car wash near Hartington that is owned by Scott Asselstine.

However, several councilors expressed the concern that Scott Asselstine has not yet complied with a site plan agreement that he signed with the township when he was seeking a zoning amendment for the car wash. Among other things, that site plan required that a berm be constructed at the south-west edge of the property, which is where the proposed storage building will be located.

“Essentially, the building will accomplish what the berm was intended to accomplish - block the light from the car wash for the neighbours to the south,” said Lindsay Mills, the township’s in-house planner.

 “Now that he’s switching from a berm to a building, what’s to stop him from dong nothing and coming back in three years with another plan?” asked Councilor Del Stowe.

“That’s why in my report, under ‘Further Recommendations’, there is a provision for a security to be submitted to the township prior to the zoning bylaw being passed,” said Lindsay Mills.

The proposed bylaw says “If neither the new building nor the berm, fencing and landscaping is constructed by June 30, 2011, the township would use the security to do the work to construct the berm, fence and landscaping.”

While Scott Asselstine was not able to attend the meeting, Linda Stewart, one of the neighbours of the car wash, did address council. She said, “I recognise that the building can become a buffer, providing there is no lighting at the back of it.”

“We can make that part of the agreement,” Mills said.

Mayor Davison then told Linda Stewart that the township is responsible for the original agreement being left un-enforced. “We were a bit remiss in not having our people follow up. I agree we dropped the ball. We won’t this time,” he said.

The council accepted the planning report for information and will consider the zoning amendment bylaw at a future meeting.

Offices near Sydenham – Council considered a bylaw to allow the zoning for a 3,040 square foot building to accommodate 11 offices on the same site as the Silverbrook Garden Centre on the edge of Sydenham village.

While the proposal was favoured by council, passage of the bylaw was delayed to allow for a consideration of the cost of extending public water to the site.

Councilor Ron Vandewal said, “We should at least find out what the cost would be to extend the water system that far. I wouldn’t ask the developer to pay the whole cost; we could cost share if it is viable. We should at least price it out before passing this.”

Waste recycling strategy – Public Works Manager Mark Segsworth appeared before council briefly to give a heads up that a proposed waste diversion strategy will be presented to council in draft form at the next meeting, on February 15. “In order to receive funding from Waste Diversion Ontario for the amount of material we recycle in our Blue Box program, we need to have a strategy for an integrated waste management system and we will be coming forward with one to the next meeting,” he said.

He also said he plans to solicit public comment through the township’s website and work is being done on a South Frontenac Reuses website as well.

In May, the township plans to open a permanent hazardous waste disposal site, and an e-waste disposal site is in the early planning stages.

Library sign – Council agreed that a sign in front of the new library will say Public Library instead of Kingston Frontenac Public Library, for reasons of simplicity.

Meetings – Council will not be meeting on March 1 because a number of councilors will be at the Good Roads conference in Toronto. There will be a Committee of the Whole meeting on March 8, a council meeting on the 15th, and budget deliberations on March 22 and 29.

Media chastised – At the end of the meeting Councilor John McDougall asked leave for what he called “some silliness”. He said he took exception to one line in a column that appeared in a rival newspaper by a writer whose name we cannot mention for reasons of professional courtesy, but whose initials are CB (as in Craig Bakay). The line in question went something like, “Let’s face it, no one comes to Frontenac County to shop”.

McDougall then read out an extended ode to the retail establishments in South Frontenac, which waxed poetic about the impressive number and variety of services and goods on offer.

We leave our readers with a small sample from McDougall’s writings: “If you didn’t buy your appliance at Trousdale’s or Verona Rona, you paid too much”

He concluded by saying, “if you can’t get it in South Frontenac, you don’t need it.

Members of council cheered, and CB joined in the ovation.