South Frontenac Council

Wilma Kenny | Dec 09, 2015

Economic Development in South Frontenac

Katie Nolan, an Agriculture and Rural Economic Development Officer who is based in Kemptville, gave a brief but detailed description of the programs, resources and tools her department could offer if Council chooses to undertake economic development planning and implementation for the township.

Nolan listed a wide range of activities that could be called economic development, including community revitalization, investment attraction, business development, and planning and infrastructure development. She outlined the steps that could go into the four stages of the process: preparation, analysis, formulation of goals and action plans, and implementation and assessment. Nolan also cautioned that any such project should be undertaken in a scale appropriate to the size of the community: “Don’t bite off more than you can chew; follow the steps and have a strong plan.”

The outline of her presentation is on the township website, as part of the Dec 08 Committee of the Whole agenda.

Request to Purchase Municipal Property

Planner Mills asked Council to consider a request by Doug Amey to purchase a vacant 100 acre lot of township property on Concession IX, Bedford, which adjoins a similar sized lot belonging to Amey. This came to Council a year ago, and is still unresolved.

Mills listed several complications: both properties are landlocked and accessible only by 1.2 km of unopened road allowance that runs from Canoe Lake Road through wetland and a small waterbody; a portion of this road allowance near the township road has several of the neighbour’s farm buildings located on it; recent investigation shows an unrecorded barn and other buildings located on the township property. The issue was returned to Mills for further information.

Notice of Pending Subdivision Application

Mills advised Council that a new subdivision application was being processed at the County level, and would be coming before Council some time in the New Year. This would be for an eventual 51 residential estate lots on Collins Lake, part lots 25 to 30, concession VII, Storrington District (first phase).

Johnston Point OMB Appeal

In regard to last week’s impasse regarding approval of draft plan approval, CAO Orr announced that Council had provided direction to their lawyer in a closed session prior to tonight’s open meeting.

Township Organizational Review

The 2016 budget includes up to $45,000 for the completion of a comprehensive organizational review. Orr presented a suggested outline of the scope of such a review for Council’s comments before issuing an RFP.

The outline included a stipulation that interviews take place with all members of Council and all managers, supervisors, lead hands, office staff and the union president on how the township is run. It will review how council operates, how all departments are run and will look for efficiencies, savings, and the potential for contracting out some functions, shared service models with other township's, and much more. Comparisons with 3-5 similar sized municipalities will also be required.

Councillors’ comments of “interesting”, “exhaustive” and “comprehensive” all verged on understatement.

Applewood Dock

Representatives of the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority (CRCA) inspected the recently installed Applewood dock (East end, Loughborough Lake) following a thoroughly documented letter of complaint from local resident Matt Rennie. They found that the dock was considerably larger than the permit had specified, but have chosen to not enforce their stipulations.

Councillor Schjerning said he found this lack of follow-up and enforcement to be troubling, asking what Council could do about it.

The CRCA will be invited to explain their decision at the January 12 Committee meeting.