Special Projects Report - September 2007
Committee reports by Mary McCulley
Report for Board meeting September 8, 2007
7c) Special Projects
ii) Insurance:
Ontario Nature (formerly Federation of Ontario Naturalists) protects and restores nature through research, education and conservation action. It champions woodlands, wetlands and wildlife, and preserves essential habitat through its own system of nature reserves. It is a charitable organization representing 25,000 members and over 141 member groups across the province. Members become part of the Nature Network of conservation and nature organizations.
All members are required to have liability insurance.and Ontario Nature offers both liability and Directors & Officers insurance through HMS Prolink.
It costs $75.00 a year to be a member of Ont. Nature after an application has been approved by the Board of Governors. I hope to have information about insurance costs by the meeting Saturday.
iv) Navigation Makers:
Jan Nyquist from Pipefusion has developed a navigation buoy and installed 2 prototypes (at Vernon Narrows by hwy 11 bridge and at Camp Kitchen). They weigh about 100 lbs, are cylindrical pipe with 3' above the water and 5' below and will be left in over the winter.
The Vernon Narrows one is held in place by 2, 55 lb concrete anchors. We're unsure how heavy the anchor is at Camp Kitchen (i.e. re movement over the winter).
Jan has said that he made these for the Huntsville Lakes Council, according to Rob Laver who's been liaising with Jan for the group of lakes using navigation markers. This implies some degree of responsibility so Elaine and I spoke to our mayor about this when we were meeting with him on another matter. He is having Town's insurer asked re costs to cover these two markers. At the same time, quotes will be requested to cover the approved markers on all lakes. If these are not outrageous, it appears that we may have the mayor's support for Town undertaking this expense.
A letter has been sent to Jan Nyquist thanking him for all the efforts and expense his company has taken to help us in producing these prototypes.
7d) Policy
i) Zoning By-law Review Committee:
The first public draft of the new Comprehensive Zoning By-law came out early in August with public meetings on August 17th and 18th.
The Policy Committee sent in a list of comments on this document by the due date of August 31st.
Claude Doughty tells me that he will meet with Terry Sararas to determine how the comments are to be managed. I expect that the Review Committee will meet to review the comments. There will then be a final draft produced and another public forum for further comments before the final draft is presented to Council.
ii) Environment Committee:
Burr is unable to carry on as alternate representative to this committee but our esteemed chair hopes that Michael Young, retired MOE water quality expert and micro-biologist, representing Hidden Valley Property Owners Association, will be able to act as Burr's replacement. Thank you Burr for the work you did on this committee.
The EC missed one regularly scheduled date to meet in early August to let folks get some holiday time. We did meet September 6th. Both Don baker (acting as the Ad-hoc EAC rep) and I felt that the committee was acting on specific issues well but perhaps could become more proactive about general environmental issues, such as climate change and the suggestions pointed in the Muskoka Watershed Council's recent Report Card update etc.
The EC agreed that changes needed to be made in how we establish a focus for the committee. To this end, it was agreed that our meetings would be rescheduled to evenings, that there would be a public session before each meeting and that groups in Muskoka with an environmental focus would be encouraged to attend. (A sub-committee has been established to try to find as many of these groups as possible.) The first such meeting will be held October 18th and discussion will allow attendees to obtain information on what each of us is doing so that the wheel will not need to reinvented constantly. We will work out how we can all foster each other's objectives and see where there might be holes needed to be filled. It is also hoped that we will have speakers at these meetings.
Sound-Sorb: The MOE was to have received in July the results of groundwater testing done earlier in the year but these are not available as yet.
The mayor had promised that testing for effluent migration needed to be done by Town on the area of the old tannery site that it owns (i.e. a phase 2 Environmental Assessment). Tenders were put out for this but replies came back with a wild divergence of costs and factors to be included. Walt Schmid is currently sending out questions to the companies replying to the tender request to allow a better apples-to-apples review of the proposals.
iii) 84-96 Main Street West development application:
I attended the Council meeting on September 4th when the redesign of the plan came up before Council. As you will recall, the Policy Committee had sent a letter in commenting on how we felt the 15.7 metre 62 unit block-style building would not complement the intent of the Official Plan to have built structures fit in to the natural landscape and enhance the positive aspects of community character. It also most certainly contravened the OP's height restriction of 11 metres. The developer outlined a new design at the Council meeting of August 13th which I attended. In respect to this, the Policy Committee sent in another letter stating that, even with the loss of a storey and a decrease in height to 12.6 metres, from every perspective this development would still appear as a massive structure and focus the eye on this piece of land so visible from Hunters Bay. We also said that we felt that the visual impact of the redesign continued to be too great and would still not enhance the positive aspects of community character.
However, at the Council meeting of September 4th, the proposal passed. Talks with councillors after indicated their reasons for voting for the proposal were the need for more housing in Huntsville and the desirability to infill in the urban area.
iv) Town Fees:
Elaine and I met with Terry Sararas on June 20th to discuss the increase in Town fees, especially those related to lake plan amendment costs ($2,500 if major planning policies are shown in the lake plan, $600.00 otherwise) and land trust rezoning costs ($1,000.00 to rezone parcels of land to conservation trust as required by the Muskoka Heritage Foundation). I then sent a letter to our mayor objecting to these charges, setting out that it can only be to Huntsville's advantage to have lakes develop lake plans (since most centre on stewardship initiatives) and lands donated to be preserved in their natural state. Elaine and I met with Mr. Doughty on September 6th to discuss this. He suggested that we appear as a delegation at the October 15th Council meeting to make these requests.
