County Officials Present Utilities Plan to North Frontenac

Jun 14, 2023

“Our purpose here today is to see if North Frontenac wants to join (Frontenac Communal Services),” Frontenac County CAO Kelly Pender told Council at its regular meeting June 9 in Plevna.

Spoiler alert: North Frontenac Council turned down the invitation the last time Pender and County Director of Planning and Economic Development Joe Gallivan asked them to join.

The idea is for the four lower tier governments of Frontenac County to form a municipal Communal Services Corporation, to direct and assume all liabilities for communal water and sewer operations in new developments (with the ability to add some surrounding properties to the system such as might be proposed for Sharbot Lake. The other three lower tier municipalities (South Frontenac, Central Frontenac and Frontenac Islands) are already on board with the concept.

The idea is to have new developments have their own water and sewer systems rather than individual wells and septics for each lot in certain parts of settlement areas. Water and sewer systems for settlement areas is quite simply cost prohibitive, especially in the Canadian Shield, which makes up a large proportion of the land in the north.

According to the proponents, a communal system would allow for more units on the same area of land, such that a development that would otherwise be restricted to eight units could be as large as 40-50. It would also allow for more diverse housing in the same development such as three-storey apartments, townhomes and detached houses side-by-side.

Furthermore, the new corporation would assume all liabilities rather than seeing the municipalities on the hook in the event a developer pulls out for various reasons.

The Municipal Service Corporation would be a separate corporate entity, capable of borrowing, applying for grants and contracting services. In all likelihood, operations would be contracted out to either an existing utility such as Kingston or Perth or a private contractor.

“We voted this down before,” said Dep. Mayor John Inglis. “We thought we weren’t going to have this kind of development but in some time frame we might.

While this isn’t new technology and several companies exist that could supply the materials and expertise, Gallivan suggested using Newterra, a company based in Brockville who have installed tens of thousands of systems around the world.

Gallivan even suggested they have solutions to remove microplastics and pharmaceuticals from waste water.

That piqued the interest of Coun. Roy Huetl, who previously held positions in the York Regional Water systems.

“I’ve never heard of pharmaceuticals being taken out of waste water,” Huetl said. “Could you provide that data?

“You’re painting a rosy picture here but I’m always skeptical when the private sector is involved for profit.”

Mayor Gerry Lichty said he too would like to see such data and suggested staff could come up with a resolution for the June 29 meeting for what he called a “final discussion.”

Honouring Gerry Martin

After staff consulted with the Tweed Legion, it was determined that it was indeed appropriate to recognize someone instrumental in the construction of a cenotaph with a plaque. After some discussion, Council decided on an engraved brick placed at the beginning of the walkway at the Plevna cenotaph to honor the late Coun. Gerry Martin, who was a driving force behind having the cenotaph erected there.

Senior of the Year

Council began the meeting by recognizing Marily Seitz as its Senior of the Year.

Signage Bylaw

A new draft signage bylaw was generally well received but Public Works Manager Darwyn Sproule still has some tweaking to do before bringing back an actual bylaw to a future meeting.

For example, there are still some questions regarding real estate signs and election signs but the sections addressing small business and service signs seem set.

“In my previous life at MTO, signs would go up on weekends and it was a full-time job to take them down on Mondays, but we’re prepared to do that,” Sproule said.

He said they tried to avoid addressing signs on private property and the good news for cottagers is that your name being tacked to a tree at the end of your lane to direct visitors is still OK because it’s part of the “Township’s character.”

The new rules will apply only on the Township Right-Of-Way