South Frontenac Council –
Sept. 23/08
By Jeff Green
South Frontenac will
decide when to set the clock on October 7
South Frontenac Council
continued to grind away at their Official Plan Review at a Committee
of the Whole meeting on Tuesday night, but the end is in sight.
Two issues remain. One is
the so-called clock re-starting issue. When the township’s Official
Plan was approved in 2001, it included a provision whereby any single
property in the township can only be divided into three building lots
without the owner undertaking an expensive plan of subdivision
process.
Now, some councillors
want the clock to be set back, so three lots can be created on any
property as of the passing of the Official Plan review, effectively
re-setting the clock to January of 2009.
The issue has been batted
around for months and was discussed again this week. It will be
bought to a final vote at the next regular council meeting on October
7.
The other issue on the
table were land designations, specifically prime agricultural and
protected wetland designations which are being applied to certain
lands, sometimes without the knowledge of the affected landowner.
As was pointed out by
Storrington Councillor John Fillion, the map marking these lands is
fraught with errors. In one case, an active quarry that is registered
as such with the province is designated as a protected wetland.
“How can a quarry be a
wetland?” Fillion asked.
Township planner Lindsay
Mills explained that the provincial ministries will not correct the
maps until the Official Plan is submitted to them.
Council decided to
contact all those affected, and submit the maps with detailed notes
about errors, and then hope they are fixed when they come back from
the province.
“If they don’t catch
everything, we’ll send them back,” said Clerk Gord Burns.
Over the next month, the
township will attempt to contact all those involved and put together
a comprehensive list of errors before finalising the Official Plan
review on October 21.
Construction cost
over-runs: Public works Manager Mark Segsworth had good news and
bad news for Council concerning road construction in 2008. The good
is news is that “We have, through a combination of in-house and
contracted resources, delivered on an ambitious program of road work
without sacrificing the quality of the work.”
The bad news is that in
three of the four districts, the cost of the construction exceeded
the budget. Partially due to a rise in the cost of pavement, (an
oil-based product), construction in Bedford was $232,000 over budget,
in Portland it was $189,000 over, and in Storrington it was
$233,000. By contrast, in Loughborough it was $27,000 under budget,
and on arterial roads such as Road 38 and bridges that are owned by
the township itself, it was $285,000 under budget.
Overall the construction
cost $400,000 more than the $4.7 million budget.
Council decided to fund
the cost overruns using infrastructure grant money from the province
and will work out a formula to compensate Loughborough district.
Segsworth said he would
make sure to inform Council of any overruns as they occur in future
years so Council can decide whether to delay projects for future
years or fund them out of reserves.
