Verona Master Plan Sets The Stage For Seniors Housing Project With Over 200 Residents

Jeff Green | Apr 03, 2024

In comparing all of the options for providing water and sewer services in a planned seniors housing development in Verona, the engineering consultants from JL Richards Engineers considered a number of options, from trying to develop or provide wells and septic systems, to drawing water from Verona Lake and pumping treated wastewater back into the lake or into a municipal sewage plant.

The consultants concluded that the only option that was preferable from all five parameters that they measured (Natural Environment, Climate Change Resiliency, Social Cultural and Heritage Concerns, Technical Feasibility, and Financial Considerations) was to leave Verona Lake and the rest of the village. The preferred option is to drill a well onsite and treat the water onsite. As for sewage, they recommend treating and then dispersing wastewater in a “Large Subsurface Sewage Disposal System” which is similar to a traditional septic bed, except the waste will undergo tertiary treatment before being flushed into the bed. The disposal system will be the larger of the two parcels of land that were purchased by the township for the project.

Based on the capacity of the sewage system that will be created, the project will be limited to providing housing for 209 people. The building footprint will include one or two-bedroom units located in townhouses, an apartment complex, or combination of both.

The project is to be located on two parcels of land, a 1.23 hectare parcel on the west side of Verona Street, and an 8.95 hectare triangle-shaped parcel directly across Verona street on the east side.

This information was provided to a crowd of over 50 people at a public information session at the Verona Lions Hall on Wednesday, March 27, to generally favourable reviews.

The initial projected cost of the entire system is just over $4 million (2024 dollars). But Troy Dunlop, the Manager of Engineering and Capital Projects for the township, told the meeting that the costing for the water and sewage system was being done from “a thousand feet above the ground.” A more accurate estimate will have to wait until some of the studies are done.

For example, if the substrate where the subsurface disposal system is to be located is rocky, it will result in a higher cost, if it is sandier or has deep soil, it will result in a lower cost.

“I thought the meeting went well. People told me afterwards that they appreciated the way the information was presented,” said Mayor Ron Vandewal. “That is not to say that people will have issues when we get further down the road and start talking about what is going to be built, and where.”

The newly established Frontenac Municipal Services Corporation (FMSC) is slated to manage water and sewer services in the development, which is a pilot project for development in Frontenac County using communal servicing technology.

“Communal Servicing is key to this entire project,” said Vandewal, “without it, we would be limited to 5 units and that is not the kind of project that the township is interested in working on. We need something larger than that to create an economy of scale and provide a viable option for a number of seniors in our community.”

The project was originally envisioned to be up to twice as large, but the limiting factor is the capacity of the onsite sewage system.

But according to Tory Dunlop, the financial cost and environmental implications of moving the waste offsite, to another land-based location, or into Verona Lake, would have made the entire project untenable.

The next phase of the project is getting underway as soon as this week.

J.L Richards will be issuing a notice of completion of the capacity study project, and the Master Plan will be posted for comment, for a 30-day period. In the meantime, the township is preparing to proceed with an Environmental Assessment Process for the preferred option, and commence hydrogeologic and geotechnical studies, and a Natural Heritage survey at the sites.

Those studies could commence as soon as June and will take at least a full year to complete.

At their meeting this week, South Frontenac Council will consider a motion to ask Frontenac County to release $330,000 that was set aside 10 years ago to support Seniors Housing in South Frontenac, and a second motion to apply for provincial funding to support up to 73% of the cost to build the water and sewage system on the site.

A 25% contingency is being added to the estimated $4.1 million cost of that project, bringing the price tag to $5.3 million, and the township will be seeking $3.75 million from the granting program, which is from the “Housing Enabling Water Systems (HEWS)” fund.

The application deadline is April 19th, and projects must commence by September of this year and be completed three years from now.

While the township does not envision completing the housing project by March 31, 2027, it expects to see construction underway by then, with the water and sewage system being the first elements to be completed.

The township intends to finance the entire project on its own.

Many larger elements of the project are still to be determined, including the mix of housing, how many market rate units and how many subsidised units it will include, the design of the building, and the ownership and management of the development once it is completed.

All of the effort so far has been devoted only to answering the preliminary question about the number of people that the site can house, and what kind of water and sewage system will be used.

“We hope to start building before the end of this term of council,” said Vandewal.

The current term of council runs out in two and half years.