Fed up, Hartington developer takes Frontenac County to OMB

Jeff Green | Feb 25, 2016

Terry Grant, who was originally planning to build 47 new homes in the vicinity of Hartington, but is now seeking to build only 13 homes on Boyce Road, is taking Frontenac County to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB).

Through his planning consultants, FoTenn Planning, Grant submitted a revised application on August 4 of last year for the subdivision. Six months have now passed since that submission, and Grant has decided to appeal the matter to the OMB because he still does not have a decision on his application.

The planning act stipulates that decisions on applications of this sort should be rendered within six months of filing.

Even though Frontenac County is the approval authority for plans of subdivision, the matter has been handled, as all such plans are currently, by the council and planning departments of South Frontenac Township.

The matter was set to be dealt with by South Frontenac on January 19. At that time a report by township planner, Lindsay Mills, was to be considered. Mill's report included 27 conditions and recommended that it be “forwarded to the County of Frontenac as representing the Township’s conditions of draft plan approval for the thirteen lot Hartington Plan of Subdivision.”

However, in an in camera session before the regular council meeting that evening, a decision was made to pull the matter from the agenda. The matter has not come back to the table in the two meetings that have been scheduled since then.

For Terry Grant, the delay represents the last straw. He said he felt that the township council is responsible for delaying his first, larger application, and now they have delayed his second plan, putting off his building plans for this summer.

“My concern is that the elected officials in this township have not done their duty to uphold the bylaws of this township. We went through the entire process, 100%. We provided our own engineering reports, answered all of the questions from the township engineering consultants; we satisfied all the conditions. This should have been passed last fall easily,” he said.

Grant's frustration goes back to the fact that the first draft of his plan of subdivision, which straddled the hamlet of Hartington and some rural land to the south, met with resistance not only from a number of local residents, but also from some members of Council, who questioned some of the staff recommendations.

“I'm a general contractor. I'm not a licensed electrician or plumber; I'm not a framer. So when I build a house I ask the experts and follow their advice. But the council does not think they need to listen to their own trained professionals. As far as I'm concerned I got 100% on the paperwork, but 0% on the politics,” Grant said.

Grant added that he is not the only one paying for the delays. He said he can employ 40 people on his construction crews, and most of them are from South Frontenac. Also the delay in construction means a delay in turning vacant land into rate-paying homes. The 13 homes he plans on building will be worth about $350,000 each and could generate in the range of $40,000 per year in tax revenue.

As well, the cost of the OMB hearing will be borne not only by the ratepayers in South Frontenac, but those in the rest of the county as well.

When contacted early this week, South Frontenac Deputy Mayor Ross Sutherland was surprised to hear that Grant had filed an OMB appeal.

“We were about to consider the proposal back in January and I thought they had made some good changes to accommodate our concerns. I was certainly inclined to support it, subject to what came up at the meeting. I did not support the larger subdivision because of concerns over water, which is an issue in that area, but the water sampling for the smaller one had better results, although the nitrate level was a concern,” he said.

What happened on January 19, according to Sutherland, was that township staff pulled the item from the agenda because of concerns that came out of a written report on the potential contamination of the ground water within the proposed subdivision from a former gas station on Road 38.

“We had received a verbal report that there did not seem to be a problem, but the written report that had just arrived that week raised concerns that staff needed to consider,” said Sutherland.

One of the benefits of an OMB hearing for Terry Grant is that once a matter is appealed to the OMB, it becomes the approving authority and their ruling is final

“At this point I just want to get in front of the Board so they can decide it once and for all, and I can get my project off the ground sooner and get my business back on track. I'm just a regular guy. I don't have the kind of money to let this sit for another year,” he said.

Frontenac County Planner Joe Gallivan confirmed that the OMB hearing is being held because, according to the planning act, a decision on a plan of subdivision needs to be rendered within six months of an application, and that date passed in early February. He said that the county will be responsible for its own legal fees, but not those of South Frontenac if they choose to have their own legal representation, and not those of Terry Grant.

He also confirmed that Michael Hickey, a lawyer representing Michelle Foxton, Charlie Labarge, John Lesperance and Wade Leonard, Hartington residents who spoke against the subdivision when it first came before Council, has contacted him and is requesting third-party status at the OMB hearing, whenever it is called.