We Like Our Rural Lots. The Province Does Not.

Jeff Green | Jul 13, 2022

It is no secret that the Province of Ontario wants people to live in cities and towns instead of on rural lots scattered across the vast province. Part of the advantage of this is that they can drink treated water, which can be managed, as long as water treatment plants are well managed, with the right safety features in place.

Waste can be gathered and treated at municipal waste treatment plants, mitigating against environmental impacts. This is how millions of people can live in the GTA without causing either a public health or environmental disaster.

This thinking extends to the way the province looks at places like Frontenac County. They would like to see people living in the small towns instead of on rural lots. But there have been two major problems with this over the years.

For one thing, the rural dream is not to live in a hamlet, but to live on a small road with some land, maybe 5 acres, maybe 20 acres, maybe 80 acres.  And land with some nice features like some woods, fields and ponds, is not that hard to find here.  

This gives people space to garden, run a small woodlot, make some syrup, keep a horse or a hobby farm, build a dirt bike track, maybe hunt on the land, or do whatever else they want. All while having a pretty short drive for groceries, and not too long a drive to ‘the city’ for all the goodies that are available there. And if the Internet works, so much the better.

When COVID hit two years ago, people flocked to our region with exactly this kind of lifestyle in mind, doubling prices for rural properties.

The other problem with the idea of development within hamlets, is that the hamlets are too small for municipal water and sewer systems to be financially viable. Even the one hamlet in Frontenac County that has a water system, Sydenham, does not have a sewer system. It was also a one off for Frontenac County, because it absolutely necessary because the water table was contaminated in Sydenham, the village also has a high school, public school, township offices and seniors apartments to help cover the expense, unlike any other location in Frontenac County save perhaps Sharbot Lake/

Promoting growth in Frontenac County hamlets actually looks like a bad idea, from a water safety and environmental impact perspective, because of pressure on the water table, and potential leakage from septic systems crowded into small lots.

Rural lots, however, even small 1 hectare lots, pose less of an environmental risk than development in hamlets, which planners call “settled areas”.

Frontenac County has been a leader in seeking a solution to this problem, by working on creating a “communal servicing” corporation, which will allow for new technology to be employed in order to create safe, affordable, more dense development in Frontenac County “settled areas”.

If this works, we can see a mix of housing, making it more viable for both younger and older people to live in our communities, because the only demographic in the position to buy existing rural homesteads, or build new ones, are people between 35 and 65 with access to at least $500,000.

It would also help the retail business community in the settled areas; grocery stores, hardware stores, restaurants, pharmacies, etc.

But, will “communal servicing” work? There is a pilot project testing that question, and it happens to be on the site of the former Sharbot Lake Public School. The school is located on the narrow peninsula that makes up ‘downtown’ Sharbot Lake. The idea is to draw water from the west basin of Sharbot Lake, treat it, then pipe it into whatever ends up being built on the former school site, and perhaps other nearby properties. Sewage will then be pumped into a small sewage treatment facility on the site for treatment. And then the harmless clean water that comes out of the treatment facility will be pumped into the east basin of Sharbot Lake.

This may be a great plan, but it does make some people nervous in Sharbot Lake. The idea that these kinds of projects will pop up across Frontenac County over the next 20 years, might make some people nervous.

A proposal to set up a self sustaining municipally owned, but independently managed corporation, which would be able to handle its own financial and insurance requirements, is being actively developed by Frontenac County. It is the centre piece of a plan to ensure growth in Frontenac County that fits the policy direction of the Province of Ontario.

The looming question is whether this will be financially viable, whether it will be safe, and whether there are developers who see good profit in investing in this kind of development.

We know, from experience, that there are people willing to invest $500,000 to $2 million on rural properties, even non-waterfront properties. 

We don’t know if there are investors willing to spend $10 million to create diverse growth in our hamlets.

And we also don’t know how many of the 27,000 residents of Frontenac County want these kinds of changes to take place in their communities.

Municipal Councils always want to encourage growth in order to maintain and increase services without raising taxes. The people who live in the municipalities – not so much. Most of us moved here seeking peace and quiet.