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Wednesday, 26 February 2020 12:45

Trail for sale?

Frontenac County is hoping to take over the K&P trail between Sharbot Lake and the North Frontenac border. The trail section is owned by Central Frontenac Township.

The county has plans to upgrade the trail to make it as accessible as the 55km K&P trail section that was completed last fall between the county border with the City of Kingston and Sharbot Lake.

The K&P line north of Sharbot Lake was purchased by Oso Township sometime in the 1980’s. Central Frontenac Mayor (and Frontenac County Warden for 2020) Frances Smith remembers the purchase because she was the clerk for Oso Township at the time.

“As I recall, it was Marathon Realty, the real estate arm of Bell Canada, who owned it. I think they told us to name our price, since they didn’t want it anymore. We offered something like $5,000, and it was a done deal. But I’m not exactly sure about the date or the cost. It was a long time ago,” she said.

The trail has been used by snowmobiles, ATV’s, walkers, runners, cross country skiers, and cyclists, ever since, and a number of people access their seasonal and permanent dwellings from it.

The trail has many interesting features. It straddles four waterways (Sharbot Lake, Black Lake, Little Round Lake and Bolton Creek) runs through a culvert under Hwy. 7, passes major rock cuts, some swampland and thick woods, before reaching Clarendon Road and the only station on the old K&P line that is still standing.

It is maintained in a limited fashion by the township under a contract with the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance (EOTA), and is groomed by the Snow Road Snowmobile Club in the winter time.

“We haven’t really invested much in it. When issues are brought to us, about trees over the trail or other maintenance matters, we call EOTA and they make arrangements to deal with the problem,” said Smith. “Other than that, we have basically left it alone since we bought it.”

The trail floods sometimes in the spring, and where it passes over open, swampy land, it is pretty rough, but passable.

All of these trail maintenance issues are familiar to the Economic Development department at Frontenac County, which has worked for years to forge a continuous trail to Sharbot Lake from the border with the City of Kingston.

With that project complete, the county plans to upgrade the existing trail between Sharbot Lake and the old station at Clarendon Road this summer, but they need ownership of that section of trail in order to work on it.

Central Frontenac Township inherited the trail when it absorbed Oso township in 1998.

At their meeting last Wednesday (February 20), Frontenac County approved a motion, put forward by staff requesting that the trail north of Sharbot Lake be conveyed to them in order to enable them to work on it.

“With construction planned for later this year on the Frontenac K&P Trail from the Village of Sharbot Lake to Clarendon Station in 2020, it is staff recommendation that ownership of these lands be transferred from the Township of Central Frontenac to the County of Frontenac. As the primary investor in the infrastructure, it is in the County’s best interest to own, maintain and manage the improved asset to ensure long-term sustainability of the infrastructure,” said the staff report accompanying the motion.

It will be up to Central Frontenac Council to decide if they want to convey the trail to the county.

“Should the Township of Central Frontenac respond affirmative to this request, a detailed review of the properties will be undertaken prior to a legal agreement and conveyance.”

In a phone interview Frances Smith said that the matter has not yet been raised at the Central Frontenac Council table and she cannot speak for Council, but she did not see, on the face of it, any reason for her council to raise any major objections.

“The county wants to Improve it and make it more accessible to our residents and visitors alike, and take over responsibility for maintenance.”

Frontenac County has budgeted money to upgrade for the 14km. section between the trailhead in Sharbot Lake and Clarendon Station, this year, so the conveyance needs to be completed shortly.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

The Sharbot Lake Business Group’s twice annual gatherings, winter and summer, are opportunities for groups of individuals and local business owners with an interest in developing the hamlet and the surrounding region, as an economic hub in Central Frontenac.

They are also social gatherings, with free food and coffee, and a cash bar, available for all who attend. At the winter gathering on Monday night, which was attended by 63, according to the group’s official chronicler, Ken Fisher, a delegation of department managers from the Frontenac County planning and development department was on hand.

The delegation included Megan Rueckwald - manager of community planning, Richard Allen, manager of economic development; and their boss, Joe Gallivan, director of planning and economic development.

In addition to county officials, senior managers from Central Frontenac, Mayor/Warden Frances Smith and most of the township council, were on hand.

After hearing updates from the business group leadership, Gallivan made a presentation that was the main event of the evening.

His presentation was based on a section of Draft 2 of the updated Central Frontenac Official Plan – Special Policy Area – Sharbot Lake.

“The goal of the section is to create a cohesive plan for future development in Sharbot Lake,” Gallivan said, quoting from the text.

After a brief trip through the history of Sharbot Lake as a frontier town/railway hub in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Gallivan talked about the current configuration of the hamlet, from its southern entranceway over a causeway that divides the two basins of Sharbot Lake, to the junction of Road 38 with Highway 7 at the north end.

In addition to the waterfront and business core sections of the hamlet, he said that attention needs to be paid to the Highway7/38 intersection.

Destination - Sharbot Lake, which is the heading for a 7- page section of the official plan, talks about some possible future developments in Sharbot Lake.

“A lot of people here take the entrance to Sharbot Lake from Road 38 for granted, but when you come around that curve and see water on both sides as you approach the causeway, it says everything about it being a village on the water. A gateway at that location would communicate to people that they are leaving the rural road and entering the village,” he said.

As examples, he showed slides of the entranceways to Richmond, Gravenhurst, and Gananoque. Gallivan also pointed to language in the Destination - Sharbot Lake section of the official plan that talks about the core of the village, the impact of improvements to Elizabeth Street that will take place in the coming year or so, and “the need to develop infrastructure necessary to sustain existing businesses and community services as well as new commercial development.”

The plan envisions the establishment of a formal trail hub in recognition of the junction of the K&P and east-west Trans Canada Trails and the Railway Heritage Park that has become, in the words of the plan, “a core public space in the village.”

Two other major changes, which might be coming to Sharbot Lake, are out of the hands of local business people and politicians, but they are included in the plan because they would have a major impact on the future of Sharbot Lake if they come about.

The first refers to the possibility that Highway 7 will be made into a 4 lane highway, which is a long range plan of the Ontario government, although there are no active plans to bring it about.

“It is the position of Council that the redesign of Highway 7 as a highway similar to other 400 series highways in Ontario would damage the future rural economy of this part of the Frontenac region,” according to the draft Official Plan.”

The alternative for Sharbot Lake, would be for the township promote a parkway development when talking to provincial officials. The parkway would potentially run between Sharbot Lake Provincial Park and Fall River Road. This section of the roadway would see a speed reduction to 60km/h, would be only two lanes, with bike and pedestrian lanes at its sides, and would have a light at the junction with Road 38.

“The MTO [Ministry of Transportation] does not care about rural economic development, they only care about getting people from point A to point B as quickly as possible,” Gallivan said, “but the current Minister of Municipal Affairs, Steve Clark, from a riding just next door, he gets it, so there is an opportunity to put the parkway idea to him, which is something your mayor and council can do.”

The other project that may be in the cards is the VIA Rail hi frequency rail line between Toronto and Ottawa, which includes a stop in Sharbot Lake in the most current project map.

Gallivan said that developing Hi-Frequency Rail service was included in the letter sent to the new Provincial Minister of Infrastructure from the Prime Minister, and added that “a year or so ago I would have given the rail project a 25% of happening, but now I would put it at over a 50% chance.”

The township has passed a motion supporting the concept of a new rail service stopping in Sharbot Lake. It is however, the subject of some controversy in Sharbot Lake, because if the new line follows the path of the former line, it would cut the narrow piece of land in the core section of the village, and curtail access to the beach, which is the feature that is identified in the Draft official plan as central component to the entire concept of Destination-Sharbot Lake.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

OPP Sargeant Cynthia Savard told the Whig Standard that a group of children whop appeared to be about 11 years old, tied telephone cable to a tree on one side of the K&P trail and extended the cable across the trail and tied the other end of the cable to a tree on the opposite, creating a potentially severe safety hazard for trail users. the cable was about 5 feet in the air.

The incident took place at about the 59 kilometre mark on the trail, where it passes next to Duncan Lake, just south of Fish Creek. Although the trail is motorised from Craig Road north, it is not motorised in the short section that passes next to Duncan Lake. Motorised traffic (ATV’s and snowmobiles use a detour over Oclean Lane for that 500 metre stretch.

A resident who lives nearby saw the kids installing the cable and called a tail volunteer. The OPP were called and they cable was removed. No one was injured.

A video of the cable across the trail is posted on the K&P trail twitter feed.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

Frontenac County received $1.534 million this past spring in one-time transfers from the Province of Ontario.

"Taxpayers need their local government to deliver modern, efficient services that show respect for their hard-earned dollars. This funding will help small and rural municipalities improve how they deliver services and reduce the ongoing costs of providing those services," said Minister of Municipal Affairs Steve Clark when Municipal Modernisation Fund (MMF) was announced on March 20.

$725,000 came to Frontenac County from MMF, in addition to $809,000 in one-time gas tax funding, to make up the $1.534 million total.

In a report to Council, Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender and Treasurer Susan Brant pointed out that council had already made a $2 million (estimated) commitment to extend the K&P trail north from of Sharbot to the Lanark County border. They proposed allocating all of the one-time gas tax money to that project.

The trail is to be constructed to the same recreational standards as the section of trail between Kingston and Sharbot Lake. The $2 million also covers trailheads in each of the 4 Frontenac townships at a cost of $100,000 each, as well as money for signage and marketing.

In 2018, Council provided staff with the authority to borrow up to $250,000 towards the new section, and covering loan payments could result in a 0.6% increase in county taxes, according to the report.

The new money is not being used for the completion of the trail between Tichborne and Sharbot Lake, which is slated for this fall with funding that has already been allocated.

Kelly Pender said that by using the grant dollars to reduce the need to borrow for a project that is already in the works, the need to use municipal taxation for the new trail section will be lessened. The county will continue to seek grant money for construction of the trail.

The largest expenditure under the $725,000 MMF is $250,000 towards the Frontenac County commitment to help fund the Eastern Ontario cell-gap coverage project, which is being co-sponsored by the federal and provincial governments as well as private investors.

The County has already made a commitment to provide $400,000, its share of what is, in total, and $299 million-dollar project aimed at improved cell phone and Internet service in Eastern Ontario, including bringing service to more remote corners of the region. The $250,000 will lessen the burden on county reserve funds for the project, reserve funds that need to be replenished each year with municipal tax dollars.

Other projects that are in line to be funded from the MMF include the following: 1. Long-term care review - $70,000, 2. Communications/Engagement Tool - $25,000. 3. Regional Roads Needs Update - $40,000, 4. Scheduling Software - $40,000, 5 - Continuous Improvement/Planning Intern - $90,000, 6. Administration Facility Architectural - $100,000, 7. Communal Services Implementation - $50,000, 8. Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan Energy Initiatives - $30,000, 9. EOWC – Eastern Ontario Initiatives - $25,000, 10. Municipal 5-1-1 - $5,000

 

 

 

Published in FRONTENAC COUNTY

At their meeting this week (Mayu 21) Frontenac County is being asked to initiate expropriation proceedings to deal with three properties on the former K&P rail line. The owners of the three properties, one of which is located south of Oconto Road in South Frontenac, and two are located in Central Frontenac closer to Sharbot Lake. The owner of the properties have rebuffed attempts by the county to negotiate a land purchase of the former railway corridor.

The county has secured most of the privately held sections of the rail/trail line, and has completed construction at the north and south ends of the final section of trail between Tichborne and Sharbot Lake, but these outstanding pieces, along with the challenges posed by some of swampier sections that the trail passes through, are a challenge to be met as the trail is overdue for completion.

In a report to council, staff explained why they are seeking to use legal means after attempting a less confrontational approach.

“The County's efforts to purchase three sections of privately owned lands at market value for the purpose of connecting the Frontenac K&P Trail have been unsuccessful and staff have determined that it is now necessary and in the public interest to apply for approval to expropriate these private lands. The purpose of acquiring these three parcels of land is to link two sections of the Frontenac K&P Trail and thereby ensure its continued longterm viability as a public trail within the Frontenac County Trail System in accordance with the County of Frontenac Trails Master Plan,” said he rport, which was co-authored by Janette Amini (Manager of Legislative Services) and Kevin Farrell (Manager of Continuous Improvement/GIS)

Published in FRONTENAC COUNTY

Hidden among the communications reports to South Frontenac Council this week was the quarterly report by one of the most active volunteers in the township, and likely one of the most active trail cyclists in the township, Robert Charest from the Perth Road area. Charest is a member of the township’s trail committee, and he reports on the upkeep of the trails to Council.

His interest in the trails started when he moved to the area in 2005, and finding that he lived right on the Cataraqui (Cat) Trail he took to trail cycling. Cycling, along with kayaking and skiing in the winter, has become a way of life for him. He uses the trails near his house often.

He has taken on responsibility for maintenance on some sections of the trail, including the picturesque section that’s runs northeast between Perth Road and Chaffey’s Locks just over the county line.

He spends some time each spring and autumn cutting up deadfall along the trail with a chain saw, He also takes the trail to go to Sydenham to buy groceries and rides regularly on the whole Frontenac County Trail system, including the new K&P sections.

In this month’s report he summarised some of his observations about the trail from the past year. The first point he made is that trail usage is up, both for cyclists and hikers, the busiest section being the Cat Trail section between Sydenham and Perth Road. He also made note of the improvement in the section that runs west from Harrowsmith to the Lennox and Addington County border, which was resurfaced using $17,500 in township funds.

“We have a nice trail surface from the Loughborough/Portland Boundary Road all the way to the Strathcona Paper Plant [near Napanee], a 30 kilometre stretch. The trail ends at the plant, and one of Charest’s wishes for 2018 is to see the trail extended another 12 or 13 kilometres into Napanee. On the other end of the trail, he would like to see a Cat Trail extension from Smiths Falls to Carleton Place, a 30 km stretch.

But along with those loftier goals he had some more specific recommendations that can be implemented more easily, and cheaply.

Those include, among others: new signage to mark the distance between hamlets of main roads; identifiable shirts for trail volunteers to make it easier for trail users to access information and assistance; picnic tables or benches and garbage cans at the parking lots on Road 38 and Perth Road; a large trail map in Sydenham, and resurfacing of a section of a small section of trail near Sydenham.

Finally, Charest thinks “South Frontenac should become an off-road cycling hub,” linking Kingston, Sharbot Lake, Napanee, and Carleton Place.

“Harrowsmith and Sydenham should ante up the offering of services and facilities to cater to all these cyclists,” he concluded.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

The Frontenac County Economic Development wants to know how residents feel about allowing motorized off-road vehicles to access the K & P Trail at the planned Bellrock Road Trailhead among other things and as such held an Open House information gathering session Monday night at the Lions Hall in Verona.

“We’re here to listen,” said Richard Allen, the County’s manager of economic development. “Not to create a debate ground.

“There is a proposal for allowing (off-road vehicle) user access (but) we don’t have a proposal design.

“We’re getting people’s ideas.”

To that end, the County provided aerial maps where community members were invited to draw on their ideas, and a display where people were invited to write their thoughts about the potential off-road vehicle use.

Currently, off-road vehicles are not allowed on the trail south of Craig Road. However, there is precious little parking there and while off-roaders could access the businesses in Verona by taking to Road 38, there is little incentive for them to do so. Also, there has been damage to gates and the surrounding forest as some motorized users circumvent the measures used to prevent their access south of Craig Road. Thus the idea of extending the off-road permission to the larger Bellrock Road area at the south end of Verona was proposed.

For the record (and granted the comments hadn’t all been read) the tally of sticky notes at the end of the evening was 36 agreeing with the proposal to extend off-road use to Bellrock Road, 3 neutral and 13 disagreeing with the idea.

“Again, we’re not making any decisions tonight, this is a workshop,” Allen said.

Although ATVs seemed to be the dominating discussion topic for the evening amongst the sizable crowd, it wasn’t the only thing the organizers wanted to hear about.

There were also discussions about parking, benches, garbage receptacles, washrooms, signage and fencing.

For those who were unable to attend Monday’s Open House, there is an online survey at the www.infrontenac.ca website where residents can voice their opinions on all the above topics.

The survey is open until Dec. 1 and Allen said they’ve received 100 responses so far.

“I think it’s great that the community has been given this opportunity to voice their opinions,” said Warden and South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 27 September 2017 18:17

K&P Trail purchase price details

In response to the front page article last week on the projected construction costs for the final 13 km stretch of the K&P Trail from Tichborne to Sharbot Lake, Frontenac County Manager for Economic Development Richard Allen sent an email pointing out two things. First, his last name is Allen, not Allan, as it said in the article. (The News apologises for the error)

Secondly, he said that contrary to an assertion in the article, the price paid by the county to the private landowners along that section of the trail is public knowledge, as the prices of each parcel were included in two bylaws passed by Frontenac County Council in June.
The bylaws include information about the sale of 16 parcels, which sold for prices ranging from $2,000 to $35,000, reflecting different amounts of trail and other circumstances. The total paid for the 16 parcels was $260,120. The county had legal costs on top of that. For a full breakdown of the payments go to Frontenaccounty.ca, click on Council at the top, then on the next page under County Council select Bylaws from the drop down menu, and navigate to 2017 and look for bylaws #22 and #24
The money for the purchases was drawn from a reserve fund transfer from the Kingston Frontenac Renovates Program.

Kingston Frontenac Renovates is a provincially funded program that provides forgivable loans to low income homeowners for necessary renovations, such as new roofs, heating systems, etc.
Over the years the program has been well used by Frontenac County residents in particular. In 2014, Kingston City staff, who administer the program on behalf of the city and the county, informed Frontenac County Council that the province was considering pulling funding for the program. In response Frontenac County set up a $400,000 reserve fund so the program would continue to operate if the province pulled out. The City of Kingston created a reserve fund as well. The province has continued to fund the program, however, and has committed to maintaining funding until at least 2019.
In September of 2016, Frontenac County staff came to Council with a proposal to divert the $400,000 reserve to the K&P Trail construction project. They proposed using $300,000 for land purchases in the 13.5 kilometre section between Tichborne and Sharbot Lake, and $100,000 to go to turning a former gas station at Hardwood Creek at the foot of Verona into a trail access park.

Against some objections, the proposal was accepted.

If current projections hold, it will cost $1.1 million for construction of the 13.5 kilometre stretch, and with the addition of about $300,000 ($260,000 plus legal fees, etc.) the section will cost $1.4 million in total, a little over $100,000 per kilometre. The money has come from grants, reserve funds and direct county taxation.

To put that total into context. When the Trans Canada Trail was being proposed, back in 1992, the ballpark price per kilometre was set by trail proponents at $36,000 per kilometre, which translates to about $55,000 per kilometre in 2017 dollars.
However, the final 13.5 kilometres of K&P Trail could be expected to cost more, for two reasons. First, the land was owned in small pieces by landowners rather than one large chunk. Second, the rail bed is not intact on that stretch and construction costs are therefore much higher.
Members of Frontenac County Council, in particular Councillor John Inglis, have requested an accounting of the entire 65 kilometre trail project, but no accounting has been forthcoming as of yet.

Published in FRONTENAC COUNTY
Wednesday, 20 September 2017 18:20

$600,000 shortfall to complete K&P Trail

In a detailed report to Council, Manager for Economic Development Richard Allan outlined the expected costs for completion of the K&P trail between the CN rail crossing at Tichborne to the Sharbot Lake junction with the Trans- Canada trail. He said that “In December of 2016 construction began on the Tichborne to Sharbot Lake portion of the K&P Trail with the support of $247,000 of matching funding from the Canada 150 Infrastructure program (CIP 150)” and at this point about 3.5 kilometres out of the 13.8 kilometre section are complete and there is only about $65,000 remaining in the budget. “It is important to note that this work was undertaken prior to the identification of the final route through the land acquisition process, and the estimated development costs were largely based on developing rail bed in generally good condition to a trail state.

Costs for rerouting of trail bed or in the case of failed land acquisition can be significant, and were not planned for during the project development stage due to the lack of clarity around a final trail route,” Allan said in his report. Now that the land purchases necessary for the completion of the trail are complete and the scope of work to complete the trail is clear, Allan’s report sets out a schedule and costs. It will cost about $300,000 to complete those sections that are straightforward by the end of this year. Three more complicated sections will not be completed until about this time next year, and will cost an additional $355,000. The total budget shortfall sits at $595,000. (The land purchase for the 22 parcels of trail that were located on privately held land are not included in these prices as they came from a $300,000 pool of money that was allocated by Frontenac County Council this past spring. The exact costs of the land parcels that were purchased have not been divulged.)

In a telephone interview Allan said that the numbers in this week’s report are what he called “high level” numbers because a lot of the work depends on the state of the terrain on trickier sections of the trail, but that they will be sufficient to get the trail completed. “I don’t want to be going back to County Council asking for even more money to complete this project” he said. He identified possible funding sources, including the Trillium Foundation, and municipal infrastructure funding for portions of the trail that require road work. But the most likely source grant of funds would seem to be the Trans Canada Trail itself. In March, the federal government committed $30 million over 5 years towards completion and improvements to the national trail. The next application deadline for those funds is September 30. Allan suggested that the county raise whatever amount it must come up on its own through a loan from Infrastructure Ontario. “This is consistent with county policies regarding long term infrastructure. It spreads out the payments and ensures that people who use the trail in the future will help pay the costs instead of the current ratepayers shouldering all the burden,” he said.

Published in FRONTENAC COUNTY
Wednesday, 13 September 2017 21:18

K&P request rejected by County

Daryl Kennedy of Ball Road has repeatedly asked Frontenac County to fence a portion of the K&P trail that abuts his farm property, and for their contractor, Crain’s Construction, to repair a gate that he says they damaged while working on the trail as it runs through his property.

When asked this past summer about the Counties’ level of responsibility as regards Mr. Kennedy, Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender said that the responsibility to fence a trail abutting farm property extended to the first purchaser of the former railroad, Bell Canada, but not to any subsequent owners.

Thus the County has no obligation to fence Mr. Kelly’s property. As well, both the County and Crains deny that the gate was damaged as part of their work on the trail. On August 30, Pender send an email to Kennedy that expressed the Counties’ final position on the matters in stark terms. It reads in full: "Mr. Kennedy - as you have been advised on several occasions, the County denies responsibility for the gate damage as does Mr. Crain. I understand Mr. Crain may, as a good will gesture, repair the gate. In the interim, responsibility for your cattle remains with you. Please take the immediate actions you deem necessary. Kelly."

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
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