| May 24, 2017


Shawn Merriman, the new Chief Building Official (CBO), offered his opinion on how Council should proceed with penalizing North Frontenac residents who constructed a yurt in the Township without the proper permits in place.

“This case should still proceed,” Merriman said. “Yurts depend on the usage as much as the actual thing.”

“The previous CBO has agreed that it's a building, I have, from my previous experience at other townships, agreed too,” Merriman said. “If they can be used as a residence, and in this case it appears that it is being used as a residence, even if it's seasonal, it's a slippery slope to get into it.”

Mayor Higgins was adamant about deferring the decision until they could sit down with the planning department, the building department, and Council to better define how they classify yurts in the Township.

“I don't agree,” Deputy Mayor Fred Perry said. “We have a set of policies and we have a building inspector that adheres to those policies. .. we have to accept those decisions,”

“We don't go around questioning when the Inspector says yes or no,” Perry continued. “That's his job.”

“In most situations I would agree but this is a unique situation...” Mayor Higgins said.

“No sir,” Merriman interrupted. “In all situations you hired your Building Inspector to do the job.”

“I'm not trying to circumvent what the building department is doing ...” Higgins said. “We haven't defined yurts in our building code.”

“The building official defines it for you once you hire them,” Merriman said.

“I'm not necessarily looking to punish anyone who truly thought they were doing something that was reasonable,” Merriman said.

“When something goes through that's not safe it's usually not those people that have a problem but the person 4-5 owners down that has the problem,” Merriman said. “… and then they ask the Township 'how could you have done this?' and you find yourself in court.”

In a recorded vote, Council chose to defer the decision. Councillors Good and Deputy Mayor Perry voted against the motion, and Councillor Inglis recused himself from the vote because the resident who put up the yurt is his daughter.

Mayor Higgins said he will sit down with the planning and building departments and try to come to a workign definition of a yurt and will report back to council

Council Approves Official Plan
Megan Rueckwald, the Community Planner for Frontenac County, came to Council on Friday in Ompah to present, and eventually get approved, the final version of the Official Plan (OP) for North Frontenac.

The updated version of the plan featured some policy revisions as a result of the last public meeting and updates to map layers.

The planning staff had recommended that Council consider changing the status of Harlowe and Snow Road Station from their current designation of “settlement” but Council voted against the idea and the two hamlets will retain their original classifications.

During the public meeting in April of this year, local residents had concerns about Snow Road not being considered a hamlet with fears of missing out on future development planning from the Township.

On Friday, Council made one final change to the OP, having Rueckwald adapt the map of Harlowe to show it as a settlement area, and then approved the plan.

If this version gets a nod from the County it will be the first Official Plan approved for North Frontenac since 2003.

Clar-Mill Archives Receives $10K Grant
Brenda Martin, from the Clar-Mill Archives, received a grant from the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area for $10,672 to help offset expenses and to allow them to hire two summer students.

North Frontenac Stands Behind Decision on Cambium
“South Frontenac is ticked off at North Frontenac in the Frontenac News so I felt I had to address that,” Mayor Higgins said.

Higgins read aloud a letter he presented during County council in defence of North Frontenac's decision to vote against applying for funding from the Continuous Improvement Fund that would allow them to hire Cambium to study waste diversion in the County.

Mayor Higgins had hoped that the funding would be used to study more progressive solutions for waste diversion and instead the Cambium study, which would cost $106,000, was highly focused on blue box programs.

“I can think of a few different options such as working with other municipalities, working with the Eastern Ontario Wardens Caucus, an incinerator, reuse facilities,” Higgins said. “That's what we were expecting was going to come back to the County.”

“It just ticked me off that we're spending that money frivolously,” Higgins said. “There's lessons to be learned from each Township before we proceed.”

“A lot of Townships aren't up to where we're at,” Higgins told Council.

“We shouldn't proceed with any studies until all options are identified...” Higgins said

“One of the realities at play is that South Frontenac is not nearly as advanced as we are at blue box recycling and they hold more votes and more power and more people and they're getting a blue box enhancement program that's good for them,” Councillor John Inglis said. “We don't need it.”

“Why are we paying their consultant $100,000 to come in and interview our public works manager to get information that our public works managers already have?” Higgins asked. “It's a total waste of money!”

“The County is good at that,” Councillor Wayne Good added.

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