Tay Valley Seeking To Promote Co-Housing, But Septic Issues Needs To Be Addressed

Jeff Green | Feb 08, 2023

Last week, Noelle Reeve, the planner with Tay Valley Township, travelled to Toronto to appear on TVO's Agenda, with Steve Paikin.

She was appearing as part of a two-person panel with the General Manager of Health and Emergency Services from Simcoe County (population 500,000) to talk about “How to Age Well in Rural Ontario”.

As Reeve explained to Paikin, there are different kinds of rural in Ontario.

“Tay Valley is roughly the same size as the City of Toronto, but with a population of about 5,500.”

The population in Tay Valley is similar to that of many rural Eastern Ontario Municipalities, and is also older than the Ontario average. The focus of Reeve's appearance on the Agenda was to highlight efforts in Tay Valley to provide the kind of housing that will support seniors wanting to remain at home, in Tay Valley, as they age.

The township developed its “Age Friendly Community Plan” in 2017, which was based in part on a survey of residents that the township undertook, with a supporting grant from the Seniors Secretariat.

The survey showed that housing, transportation, and social inclusion were top priorities.

The pattern of development that is facilitated by zoning bylaws throughout rural Ontario, in line with the Provincial Policy statement, is to develop a single house on each rural lot, with its own well and septic system.

In order to address the housing and social inclusion needs of seniors, Tay Valley is looking to make changes to its zoning bylaw to permit co-housing developments.

As Noelle Reeve explained to Steve Paikin on the Agenda, there are a few models of co-housing developments that could address the needs of rural seniors.

One that was illustrated was a series of small buildings set up around a communal garden, patio and green space, with one larger building in the middle.

Each building is a small housing unit, with a bedroom, bathroom and living room, and the larger building houses a kitchen and living space to be shared by 8 or 10 co-housed seniors.

“We are looking at changes we need to make to our zoning bylaw to permit this kind of development, or other ways of sharing a single lot for a co-housing arrangement, but we also need to address the rules around water and septic,” Reeve said to Paikin.

She said that, if a developer wanted to build a co-housing project like the one she talked about, the municipality requires a surety from the developer to deal with the possibility that the system may eventually fail. And, that the responsibility to replace it may very well fall to the local township, if the developer who initially installed it has gone out of business.

“For a developer to invest in a water system, and then be told they need to, essentially, pay for it again, can be a deal-breaker for them,” she said.

“Our neighbours in Frontenac County have been working for 5 years on a communal servicing plan to cover off that risk to the township and make it easier to develop co-housing projects, perhaps even setting up a public utility to run the systems.”

Tay Valley Township received a grant from the Ministry of Seniors and

Accessibility to identify the changes they need to make to their Zoning By-Law to allow for co-housing development. The grant will also help the township to examine ways to better communicate with seniors and to make its facilities, trails and events more inclusive of seniors.

In a media release following the airing of the TVO program, Tay Valley Head of Council, Rob Rainer, also referenced the Frontenac County initiative.

“We are working with Frontenac County and the province to make servicing cohousing with communal septic systems more easily achieved,” he said.

And last week, South Frontenac Township Chief Administrative Officer Louise Fragnito represented Frontenac County at a pre-budget session with provincial ministry officials in Napanee. She pressed for provincial support to further Frontenac County’s Communal Servicing initiative.

Frontenac County is seeking provincial funding to help set up an arms length municipal corporation to handle surety and maintenance needs for communal water and sewer systems.

Frontenac County Council has already approved a plan to set up the corporation, which at is slated to be funded by the local Frontenac Municipalities on a voluntary basis.

To date, three of the four Frontenac municipalities are committed to providing the seed money, up to $500,000. North Frontenac is the only outlier, but their decision to decline was made in a close vote under the former council, and is subject to change as there are now 3 new members on the 7-member council.

The townships who opt in are committed to paying on the basis of weighted assessment, which would result in South Frontenac paying about 65%, Central Frontenac 25%, and Frontenac Islands 10%, assuming North Frontenac does not change its stance.

“The ask from the province is as much for them to signal their support for what we are doing as it is about the money,” said South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal. “We made a presentation to the minister of housing and other provincial officials at the annual AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario) last August and all the people in the room said how great this project is and how it fit their plans, etc., and I guess we would like to see if they really mean it.”

The provincial budget will be tabled sometime this spring.