Comment
Vigilante rule
County planning staff have spent five years examining a proposal to add 337 more trailer sites to Quinte’s Isle Campground. They’ve studied the plans, made revisions, and assessed the impact on this community’s environment, roads, community, water, and character. They’ve ensured that these assessments were peer-reviewed and bulletproof. They’ve consulted with neighbours, Indigenous communities, and the Friends of South Shore. They’ve worked with provincial and federal environmental agencies and Quinte Conservation.
At the end of this comprehensive investigation, the County’s Planning staff concluded that the plan “conforms to all applicable local and provincial policies.”
Not surprisingly, some people are unhappy with this finding. More than two dozen folks queued up last week to speak against the application. They have been led to believe that if enough show up at Shire Hall or its digital equivalent, Council will bend to their will.
Among the assortment of objectors were neighbours of the resort, County residents, along with Toronto academics, GTA planners and a Toronto law firm, headed by the former executive director of Environmental Defence.
It was an impressive show of legal, political, academic might—arrayed, it seems, to intimidate Council into making a bad decision. One that could be costly for County taxpayers.
Land use planning is not like other municipal functions. Local government has an important role to play, but unlike operating an arena or park where Shire Hall has relatively broad discretion, the municipality’s role is more constrained and process-determined in planning matters.
The province has clear and defined land use planning processes. Local governments determine policies in the form of their official and secondary plans, zoning and such. But even here, we must establish these rules within the bounds set by the province.
Ultimately, the local planning authority’s decision- making must stand up to legal scrutiny—as both applicants and those who oppose the plan may appeal to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT), a provincial quasi-judicial body.
In this forum, the only basis for overturning the local decision is if it “does not follow” provincial policies or municipal plans. More precisely, the legislation prescribes that “the LPAT must dismiss an appeal of a municipal decision unless the municipality’s decision is inconsistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, does not conform/conflicts with provincial plans or does not conform with an applicable official plan.”
In this matter, the County’s planning staff have determined that expansion to Quinte’s Isle does, in fact, conform to these policies and plans. They have recommended approval to Council.
Nevertheless, dozens of not-in-my-back-yard folks are convinced they understand the issues better than the County’s professional staff. They are intent on pushing County council members to reject their staff’s recommendation.
It will be awkward, however, if Council buckles to this pressure and overrules its planning staff. It will be viewed, and rightly so, as a political decision—a concession to the outraged mob. The applicant will use the planner’s conclusion to appeal the case to the LPAT. The municipality will lose. County taxpayers will pay the legal bill. The neighbours will be disappointed. And the professional objectors will move on. To cause disruption and discontent in another community.
Let us, briefly, look at the other side of this fight.
The family proposing the addition to this seasonal facility have operated Quinte’s Isle Campground for nearly four decades—since the two boys were teenagers. They have been, by all measures, good and conscientious resort operators and citizens. They have given back to this community. They have served on local government boards and committees. They care about Prince Edward County. Quinte’s Isle residents uniformly love their community.
For a brief history on the Ward family, click here.
While Quinte’s Isle may not be my choice for a summer getaway, it has become a thriving and vibrant community serving 600 trailer homes. They seek to expand by adding another 337 on land they already own and operate. It is not at all clear to me what problem the objectors are trying to solve.
Perhaps they intend to make it so costly for this County family that they will give up their plans. Perhaps.
But soon enough, another developer will come along—with deeper pockets and a more mercenary approach to development. They won’t be deterred by a handful of objectors—or two dozen. It will just be the cost of doing business. All we will have done is to displace the proven, responsible, and truly local community builder with a powerful and unaccountable numbered company.
All this negative energy is reminiscent of the fight over the development of Sandbanks Summer Village on East Lake. Friendships were lost. Relationships soured. Venom spilled like wine. I imagine a few “No to 237 cottages” still poke out of the roadside undergrowth of County byways as a reminder of the lingering bitterness.
Yet despite all the opposition, the legal fights and general discontent, the project proceeded. The predictions of doom to the natural environment, of snarling traffic jams in Cherry Valley and devastation to East Lake failed to materialize, or, at a minimum, proved wildly overstated. The property generated about $4,500 in taxes to the municipality when it was a driving range. Today it contributes hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to municipal coffers. Its recreation facilities are open to its neighbours, and the extension of broadband Internet to the project has connected other East Lake neighbours.
Many of the objections to the Quinte’s Isle expansion have their roots in environmental concerns. They arise from a desire to protect against threats to wildlife and the natural habitat—particularly on the County’s rugged south shore. These are worthy and laudable concerns. But this is the wrong way to go about it.
If folks believe these protections aren’t sufficient, then stopping one little expansion project in Prince Edward County won’t make them stronger—despite what the professional objectors claim. The proper venue to propose and advocate for stricter environmental standards and enforcement is in the hard work of hammering out municipal plans (such as the County’s Official Plan, currently under review), and advocating for stiffer provincial regulations and policies. This is where the rules are set and the procedures spelled out. This is how we protect our environment.
It is inappropriate, unfair and ultimately illegitimate to enact new policies on an ad hoc and per project basis. It is arbitrary and unenforceable.
Yet, too many folks have been persuaded that their distaste for a project or development amounts to a sufficient basis for Council or the municipality to reject it. They are mistaken. But the professional objectors are counting on this inexperience to propel Council to make another needless and expensive planning blunder.
I know I know you are not one of these NIMBY mobs because it is NIYBY. Neither am I. The 2000 + people is not prisons in the campsite, they are going to wonder around . You don’t have to be a genius to know it will have huge impact on land , water and traffic in the county’s backyard, our backyard. Ever be bothered to read those professional “studies”? For example,the Traffic Study concludes there is no impact on Slamon point Rd. You are kidding me?! What about county Rd 18? If you ever visit Sandbanks like me in the past summer, you know this is a crazy idea. I am wondering who pays for all these reports? Haha , it is good to be rich. Land is here before there is even a human being and will be still here long after we all die. We don’t and can’t own it. Don’t sell you soul for cheap Mr.Con.
I think the article was on point and as such hit the nerves of those attempting to stop this expansion. I believe the County professionals have read this correctly in reviewing the Provincial Policy Statement and our Official Plan. The site has been good business partners with the County for decades. I support the expansion and believe it will pass either through Council or the Tribunal.
Dear Mr. Conroy,
I’m assuming you were looking to help out around here with your “Vigilante” comments last week on the Quinte’s Isle proposal. I can’t say you did help. But I wish you would.
You mentioned the professionals in our Planning department. You suggested that anyone who went before Council to question the approval recommended by that department, must be a basely motivated, come-from-away or local ignorant member of a NIMBY mob. You quote from the Provincial Planning Act and suggest that the provincial planning process is the right way to protect our environment. But can you sincerely believe that? Can you really mean it when you write that citizens ought to trust in this planning process, in its current incarnations, to produce balanced outcomes, favouring citizen and developer alike?
Even if you were of such faith, do you see this process as so beyond criticism as to feel ok to paint anyone choosing to voice their objection to Council as suspect?
You write that the Quinte’s Isle proponent comes from the County, been here since their teens, served on community committees. You draw contrast with the powerful and unaccountable company from away, implying that any local looking to develop here is somehow exempt from producing a plan that possibly is not in the interest of the public. You strain credulity with this nonsense.
And give no credit to the credentialed objectors, and the citizens who yes, do think the planning department made a mistake.
Can you really think of no other reason than selfishness that citizens should appear before this Council, hopping mad? Is this really a story about a planning process so faultless, a proponent so blameless, that any other line of inquiry, such as into the issues themselves, is not only unncessary, but fair game for your caricaturing pen?
I can think of many other possible reasons for this mess. It’s why mine was one of the dozen deputations slated for that fateful night.
But this story isn’t about me, and it isn’t about the professional planners, or any of the deputants who like me, spent hours, for months, learning this proposal and associated files, and it isn’t about the Councillors. And it wouldn’t have been about you, if you had not chosen to make it about personalities.
What my eyes show me is this: I see that our municipality like every single municipality in this province is under extreme pressure from developers. I can see that the devolution of powers to the municpalities is slim enough without the added injury of Ministerial Zoning Orders, neutering of Conservation Authorities under cover of COVID and the Christmas break, and the overall emasculation of environmental oversight. I see amendment after amendment to our Official Plan – when is that draft one ever coming?? – asked for and given by one developer after another. I see the public good under duress by private profit.
If you want to talk personalities, you could comment on the effects of this unrelenting pressure on our County councillors and staff trying to balance a budget with vanishingly small resources to do so. Talk about a developer with a profit motive and a pile of cash and clear prospects of making more.
I hope we are all in this together Mr. Conroy. There’s the devil of pressure on us all, good and bad. It sure would make things a lot better if we could get a bead on the actual drivers of this scenario: cash-strapped municipalities, emboldened and empowered developers, citizens already stressed by COVID and brutal bank balances faced with unaccountable processes, never mind clumsy online meeting protocols to participate in a special Council meeting during a pandemic – we’re all doing our best to adapt! And let’s not forget a natural environment we can all see is on death watch.
Instead, you give us a cartoonish panel of stereotypes and mean-spirited innuendo. Instead, I find myself writing to my local newspaper, feeling pretty activated by the portraits I read in it. They’re not of anyone I recognize. I sure hope you didn’t mean me.
Jane Macdonald
Wellington
Thank you Rick for telling it like it is. Quinte’s Isle Campark is an extremely well run business in a municipality that relies on tourism to survive. Its proposed expansion will make much better use of the land in question than letting it lie fallow as scrubland and will significantly increase municipal tax revenues. It provides dozens of jobs. It provides a cottage experience for those who cannot afford to compete with wealthy Torontonians for second homes in the County. And those cottagers explore the County and support its businesses. A win-win on many levels.
Griete Wemekamp
(born and raised in The County and now returning after fifty years as a resident of Quinte’s Isle)
Hey Rick, time to turn off CNN and give your hear a shake! Read the facts and try again. It is apparent that your new position as a short term rental facility is clouding your judgement! SAD
Differing opinions are fine however they should be based on fact, a premise that seems to have escaped Mr. Conway. Community engagement is what leads to robust conversations and thoughtful decisions. To call the engaged community members who decided to step up and voice their opinions and concerns and ask questions, vigilantes is disrespectful to put it politely.
Let’s look at a few facts. Had Mr. Conway taken the time to listen to deputations given to Council previously or read those to several of PECs Advisory committees, he would have been more informed regarding what is at stake. These deputations came from people who live here, people who are experts on cultural, heritage, environmental, land use and planning issues. I made a point of listening to and reading them so I could be informed.
Community objection to the proposed rezoning and planned development is County-wide, not just several neighbours, nor just recent. Clearly Mr. Conway did not review the communications matrix appended to the Jan 19th meeting agenda. It showed at that time, 114 letters etc, with only 2 in support, several neutral and the balance objection to the rezoning proposal for a wide variety of reasons.
These objections have been raised since May 2018 and remain unanswered and addressed. These objections are not emotional or NIMBY but rather based on fact and knowledge of the property, the area in question and our Official Plan. This is not anti-tourism, anti-trailer park or even anti the Campark owners. It is about what is right for this land and this area of the South Shore. I have come to learn this is the last remaining worked farm field that touches the water on the entire South Shore between Salmon Point and Ostrander Point – this alone is an incredible testament to its cultural heritage.
The rezoning proposal and development is not in keeping with our Official Plan. Too add upwards of 1000 people to an already crowded area is a disaster waiting to happen. Look at the community survey attached to the Tourism Management plan for what, and where the biggest issues were – yup, right here in that area.
Mr. Conway seems stressed over the fact that an expert lawyer from Toronto was going to speak at the meeting on January 19th. Fact is the Campark owners’ lawyer is also from Toronto. Additionally, most, if not all of the consultants hired to write reports for the Campark’s proposal were not from the County. This includes the “expert” hired and paid for by The County to peer review documents in Dec 2020 who lives in Guelph. Many of these experts chose not to even visit the property in question to render their opinion. And, do not pretend to know what the existing residents of the Campark think about the proposal, I doubt you surveyed them.
Mr. Conway would be well advised to pick a lane and stay in it. As recently as Feb 2019 he admonished a developer by asserting our community right to protect our sense of place and rural character. I sense a convenient double standard now emerging. Mr. Conway owes an apology to the community he just called Vigilantes. They are concerned and engaged citizens who care about the County now and the legacy we are leaving behind for our children.
Sincere apologies to Mr. Conroy for getting your name wrong. I stand corrected.
Omg … thank you, thank you 🙏 I was so upset reading R. Conway article! Really upset with the Wellington times for pushing the vigilante headline …
Let’s base our decisions on science and not on contribution to community by a proponent, this is 2021!
I am speechless – Rick Conway couldn’t be more inaccurate in his baseless banter. This is nothing more than a promotion for the Ward family and Quinte Isle – really, really disappointed in you Rick! Do better
“It is inappropriate, unfair and ultimately illegitimate to enact new policies on an ad hoc and per project basis. It is arbitrary and unenforceable.”
Precisely, then add a positive staff report and a refusal of this application will almost certainly be overturned at LPAT. If the applicant does appeal Council has to direct legal staff to find an outside planner that will provide an opposing opinion. The applicant will then cite the staff report. It will be an expensive and muddled fight. I suggest Council look to a negotiated solution.
As a former RV owner I have seen a number of RV parks across Canada and into the U.S. Quinte’s Isle is an nice park, clean, well laid out and seemingly well managed. Only a portion of its sites are for transient users. The balance are essentially summer cottages. I gather that seasonal use is the intent of the proposed expansion. The Pebble Beach portion has nice sized lots and hopefully so will the new portion. The layout of the park leaves a large buffer zone around the perimeter. I for one agree that this project should go ahead.