Frontenac County Loses Out At Tribunal Hearing over K&P Trail Land

Jeff Green | May 22, 2024

It is back to the drawing board for the trail developers at Frontenac County.

An expropriation order for the Geddes property in the vicinity of the Snow Road to enable the construction of the K&P trail through that property, resulted in a “Request for a Hearing of Necessity” launched by the property owner, Andrew Geddes, to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT), under subsection 7 of the Expropriations Act.

A hearing on the matter took place virtually on March 12 of this year in front of Jennifer Campbell, a member of the OLT.

Geddes represented himself ad the hearing and the County was represented by Spencer Putnam, an associate with Cunningham Swan. The main witness for the county was Richard Allen, Manager of Economic Development.

The item of contention that caught the attention of the adjudicator was not the justification for expropriating in order to create a trail, which she accepted, it was the width of the parcel that was included in the expropriation order.

Campbell delivered her ruling on April 19th

The ruling included an itemised report of the substance of the hearing, the OLT’s analysis of the issues at hand, and a ruling

Describing the Geddes property, Richard Allen compared it to “upside down lollipop”, with the southernmost portion of the property housing the residential structure and the “stick” shaped end of the property protruding in a northernly direction. The northern portion of this “stick” widens by up to approximately 40 metres in some locations, as the western side of the property follows the edge of the Antoine Creek

Claiming that it was not advisable to create “orphan lots”, Allen said that the county decided to expropriate the entire “stick” end of the property, claiming that the retained “orphan lots” on either side of the trail would have no economic value for Andrew Geddes.

Geddes said that while the “’orphaned’” lands on either side of the ‘stick’ end of the Subject Property would not be capable of economic development, he and his family have utilized these lands for generations in order to access woodlands, maintain a boat launch, collect firewood, fish and generally enjoy the forested areas and adjoining meadows.”

The expropriation order extended to a width of 40 metres in the stick end, and Jennifer Campbell pointed out that the “minimum width required got the K&P Trail is 4-5 metres.”

Therefore, she concluded that the expropriation order for up to 40 metres of width on the Geddes property did not satisfy two of the prongs of the test set forward in section 7 of the Expropriation Act, that the expropriation of lands is “fair, sound, and reasonably necessary” to accomplish the objective in question, in this case the construction of the trail.

While she determined that the order was ‘sound’, she concluded that it was neither ‘fair’, nor ‘reasonably necessary’.

In her “Finding and Opinion” Campbell said that if “the width of the proposed expropriation is narrowed to align more closely with the minimum width of land required for the construction and maintenance of the K&P Trail, … , the proposed expropriation would be ‘fair, sound and reasonably necessary” to enable the trail to proceed through the property.

When contacted, Richard Allen said that he will be bringing a report to Frontenac County Council in June regarding the next steps in reaction to the OLT ruling, He said the ruling will not have an impact on planned trail development in 2024, which is only slated to take place south of the Mississippi River (pending a Rural Economic Development Grant application) and the Geddes property is north of the river.

(Editors Note – this was the second OLT hearing regarding an expropriation process in North Frontenac. The first launched by the Riddell family in the Robertsville area, resulted in the expropriation order being upheld by the tribunal.