Addington Highlands agrees to adopt new Road Maintenance Policy

Craig Bakay | Aug 09, 2023

Addington Highlands Council tentatively accepted a new Road Maintenance Policy at its Aug. 1 meeting at the Addington Highlands Community Centre in Denbigh.

The policy had been introduced at last month’s meeting, where it was circulated to Council for review and it will now be brought back to the September meeting for final acceptance.

Dep. Reeve Tony Fritsch asked about potential budget impacts to which Roads and Waste Manager Brett Reavie replied that there are no budget implications per se in the policy other than what would normally be required to keep the roads they do maintain up to Township standards.

The policy also includes a roads transfer policy to address criteria that council should consider for accepting new roads to be maintained.

That point did come up later in the meeting when considering a request from Richard Webb to have the Township create an access route to a water access property on Mazinaw Lake.

CAO/Clerk-Treasurer Christine Reed said Webb’s request has been considered at two previous meetings, Aug. 12, 2007 and Aug. 4, 2020.

The proposal was rejected the first time for lack of funds and the second time for lack of funds and the fact that since much of the property is Crown Land, the Township has no jurisdiction over it.

“One of the biggest hurdles would be to get permission to put the road on crown land,” Reed said. “And the applicant would have to apply to get that.”

“Just out of curiosity, what would it cost to put a road in there?” said Coun. Ken Hook.

“I wouldn’t even hazard a guess,” said Reavie. “If it were straight across a farmer’s field, it might not cost too much but if there’s any blasting required or swamp to be crossed, it would be costly.

“And then there’s things like how much road bed and gravel would be required and would there need to be an environmental assessment.”

Chief Building Official David Twiddy said that he and several of his neighbours have looked at doing a similar road and received quotes between $248,000 and $257,000 for 1,600 linear feet.

Regardless, municipalities deal with requests to build and/or maintain roads all the time, and it’s rare that any get favourable responses.

“We’ve had numerous requests in the past but we’ve never done it,” said Coun. Kirby Thompson.

“We struggle to keep the roads maintained that we already have,” said Coun. Helen Yanch.

Rental fee waived in park

Council voted to waive the rental fee for Heritage Park in Denbigh for an event by the New Apostolic Church.

Santa Claus Parade

Council agreed to participate in the 2023 Lions Club of Land O’Lakes Santa Claus Parade.

Bylaw exemption for North of 7 challenge

Council agreed to a noise bylaw exemption for the North of 7 Challenge Sept.9 for the hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“We did this last year and it was very successful,” said Coun. Kirby Thompson. “And it’s only until 6 p.m. and it brings in lots of people to our community.”

Doctor recruitment

Council approved $5,000 for a virtual and physical brochure from the Doctor Recruitment Fund provided by the County of Lennox & Addington. The brochure is being produced pro bono by Coun. Ken Hook and his wife and will be distributed at trade shows and recruitment fairs as well as online.

The $5,000 will also include potential familiarization tours for medical students (and doctors).

Mowing program

Mowing is being completed in Ward 2 and will be moving up to Ward 1 shortly, Roads and Waste Manager Brett Reavie told Council.

“We had some delays with breakdowns that hindered our progress,” he said.

He also said that the waste sites are busy.

“It’s summer, they’re busy,” he said.

$8 million in building activity

Building activity has “reached the $8 million mark,” CBO David Twiddy told Council. “The activity was generally generated by the windstorm.

“And the (pigeon) netting is almost completed at the Flinton Arena.

“You’d never know it was there.”

Odd Jobs

Addington Highlands will be advertising for a “handyperson” to do odd jobs around the Township.

“We were about to do this in 2020 but you might remember a little something happened around then,” said CAO Clerk/Treasurer Christine Reed. “This one got missed.”

Update on Bank Machine

Council instructed staff to contact the Bank of Montreal to see if there was any update on a banking machine for the community.

“I needed some cash the other day but when I went to the TD machine in Foodland, it was broken,” said Reeve Henry Hogg. “And then I went to the Shell and it was broken too.”