Jeff Green | Sep 24, 2015


North Frontenac to go slow on new office project

North Frontenac Council has deferred consideration of a report prepared by Councilor Denis Bedard, which presented a number of options to deal with the working conditions in the township office complex on Road 506 between Ardoch and Plevna.

The report was the subject of a public meeting on August 31 as well as numerous written responses from constituents that were included in the agenda package for the regular meeting of Council on Monday, September 21.

Of five options mentioned in the report, only three are being considered by Council. They range in price from just over $500,000 to renovate the existing building, to $900,000 to renovate and build an addition to the existing building, to $1.63 million to build a new 5,000 square foot office at another site and renovate the existing building for use by the Public Works department. Half of the current building is already used by Public Works as a garage.

Although it is the most expensive option, the plan to build at a new site is favoured by the fact that there are water problems at the existing site. A report that was prepared eight years ago indicates that treating the water at the existing site would be an expensive option in the long term. Of four companies contacted, only one was willing to quote on the job.

“The water is basically untreatable and there would be no guarantee with any of our systems” said one of the companies.

The township has received 50 written comments from members of the public over the past two weeks, most of them expressing opposition to building a new office because of the cost and resulting impact on property taxes.

“I was surprised at the very strong opposition to spending $1.5 million. In view of those comments, I am certainly not willing to make a recommendation to go ahead at this meeting,” said Councilor John Inglis.

Mayor Ron Higgins said he had not expected Council to move quickly on the project.

“At this point all we are looking for is to defer this to the budget,” he said. “The message we need to get to the public is that we are not making a decision at this time.”

Deputy Mayor Fred Perry said it might be an idea to look again at treating the water at the existing site.

“We did that study eight years ago. Maybe the technology for treating water has improved in that time?” he said.

Corey Klatt, the manager of Community Development, prepared the water report eight years ago. He said that he could contact the same companies again to see if there have been any changes.

The matter was then deferred to the budget process of 2016, which will get underway sometime this fall.

SunEdison comes calling

Utilia Amaral, Managing Director, Strategic Affairs, and Jonathan Frank, Director, Business Development, from SunEdison Canada, spoke to Council at the invitation of Mayor Higgins about the potential for a large scale solar farm in the township.

SunEdison Canada is a division of SunEdison, which Amala described as the largest solar energy company in the world, with $5 billion in market capitalization, 5,000 employees, and 1 gigawatt of energy in operation at 800 sites worldwide.

She said that now that the deadline has passed for the first phase of the Independent Energy Service Operator of Ontario (IESO) Large Renewable Projects procurement, there is time to start looking at projects for the second procurement, which will likely be initiated in the middle of next year.

Although Sun Edison has been involved in some of the smaller rooftop or ground mounted solar projects that are common in the region under the Feed in Tariff (FIT) program, Jonathan Frank said, “Our main interest is in the larger projects. We have built one 90 megawatt project and several in the 40 megawatt range. The economies of scale make those projects more viable for us.”

Utilia Amali said that one of the advantages she sees in North Frontenac is the access to the electrical grid that has been offered by Hydro One.

The hydro corridor, which runs though North Frontenac practically in sight of the township office, has been allotted 170 megawatts in capacity from projects along its path, which has piqued the company's interest. She also said that the amount of sun in the region, although it is less than in the Napanee to Brockville strip just north of the 401 where many solar projects have been built in recent years, is still viable for solar power production.

“The problem I see that we need to overcome is the amount of trees on the land and the terrain,” she said.

“We were thinking about using some land that was cleared for farming and is no long being used for that purpose,” said Mayor Higgins.

“If you could gather some information for us about potential locations, that would be helpful,” said Amali.

In terms of the amount of land that is required, Jonathan Frank said it takes about seven acres of solar panels for every megawatt of solar production.

Community Hall Governance

Based on a change coming from the township's insurance company, council is no longer required to approve the membership of the local committees that handle booking and maintenance of the five community halls, although staff will still keep a list.

“If we don't need to be involved, we shouldn't be involved,” said Councilor John Inglis.

Since it will be the next meeting before a change can be made, Council was still required to deal with a request from the Snow Road Hall committee.

On September 2, at a special meeting at the hall, “it was acknowledged that the president and the board term of office ended” said a letter from Fred Fowler to the township. The letter goes on to say that at the meeting, which was moderated by Alice Gilchrist, the following people were nominated to form an interim board: Fred Fowler and Robert Quigley, Laurie Ryder, and Connie Halliday. A new board will be elected at a meeting of the hall membership on October 21.

Council approved the new list of names to manage the operations of the Snow Road Community Centre. By the time the new board is elected in October, they may not have to.  

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