Water is critical

Future event venue plans will hinge on finding water source

Planning Committee heard of grand plans for the former North Marysburgh Centennial Central School located at 383 County Road 7 near Lake on the Mountain. The owner—Toronto-based Liberty Entertainment Group—has applied to rezone the property from institutional to tourist commercial to permit an event venue and culinary school with ten guest rooms.

The site, which has sat derelict since 2003, currently consists of a one-storey brick building. The proposed venue would be contained within the building envelope and no new buildings are proposed as a result of redevelopment. The proposed venue would include a new wooden deck to the rear of the building and new commercial parking lot.

For over three decades, Liberty Entertainment Group, led by Nick Di Donato has been redefining Toronto’s restaurant, nightlife and special event experience. As creators of numerous landmark establishments such as Casa Loma, Liberty Grand and the recently opened Rogers Stadium in Toronto, the group has become recognized as one of the most successful and innovative companies in the hospitality and entertainment industry.

But the real world experience didn’t ease the worries from the community. Nine members of the public—the majority neighbours to the property—provided comments at the meeting.

Vivian Jones lives directly across from the former school at Lake on the Mountain. She said that the County is allowing Helter Skelter development.

“You have handed over the County to development on a silver platter. Everything goes and everything is up for grabs,” she said. “This is an open-end zoning, once they have it, you can do anything. There is no restriction. As soon as it’s approved, there is really no limit.”

Jones compared the rezoning to the path the CAPE in Picton followed.

“The CAPE came to town as a culinary school and event venue with a few rooms. What happened to the culinary school at the CAPE?,” asked Jones. “Now they have been approved for a 20 room hotel. The rezoning for the school can, and I predict will follow the same path. Why wouldn’t they?”

Jones then noted that the process seems flawed. She believes most people will never know the project is happening.

“This corporation has had six years to prepare documents for re-zoning, the locals have had two weeks to get over the shock and to try and figure out how to deal with this intrusion on our quiet rural neighbourhood,” said Jones.

Amy Bodman spoke on behalf of the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists. She noted that the current owners have agreed to keep the chimney at the school open for chimney swifts.

“The chimney at 383 County Road 7 has been used by chimney swifts for roosting and nesting habitat every year since the start of our survey in 2012,” said Bodman. “Today, I was delighted to learn that the owner has agreed to keep the chimney open for swifts.”

Bodman said that swifts are a species-at-risk, classified as threatened in Ontario, and their population has plummeted 90 per cent since the 1970s.

“Swifts have been using pre-1960 chimneys in Prince Edward County for over a century as roosts, a night time stop over during migration, and as nesting chimneys,” she added.

Lake on the Mountain resident Angus Ross didn’t mince words on the proposed noise and light pollution the parking layout would bring with it.

“It appears that the parking will mostly be at the front of the building facing County Road 7. This means we will be subject to door slamming late at night. The idea of large trees blocking the view of the parking lot is quite frankly BS,” said Ross. “We do not want to be subject to the bang-bang-bang of doors.”

He also worried about light pollution.

“One of the benefits of living in the area of the school is the absence of a pollution that nobody talks about: the pollution from light affecting dark sky. How will the proponent compensate me for the loss of this priceless amenity,” asked Ross.

Mark Hanley lives directly beside the school. He and his wife had several concerns.

“The re-zoning would authorize the property effectively as a hotel, this is something we should really watch. It would also use private water and septic, not something I think a larger company would use,” said Hanley.

Harold Bratten and his wife operate a bed and breakfast adjacent to the school property. He said he was originally excited about plans for the school, but was now concerned about the direct impact on his well.

“Given global warming, the current period of drought, we are becoming concerned about quantity, like many others in the County. Over the period of the well test, the water level in our well dropped by 10 feet, half the capacity of our well,” said Bratten. “Under current conditions, which seem to be becoming the new summer norm, groundwater levels would be lower, and recovery rates slower. This would have a significant adverse impact on our home and business.”

Bratten suggested that the owners look at accessing water from Lake Ontario, rather than using a well.

QUESTIONS FROM THE COMMITTEE
Shawn Legere with RFA Planning Consultant led the committee through details of the rezoning. He noted that the proposed uses are permitted as-of-right, but in an institutional not-for-profit basis and not a commercial one. The proposal would allow those permitted uses into a commercial for-profit enterprise, which he says is considered technical in nature.

He also shared that facility would operate as a whole-building establishment, which means the 10 accommodation units will only be available together with the rental of the assembly hall.

Councillor Sam Grosso asked what the capacity of the assembly hall was going to be. He had trouble getting a straight answer.

We are not asking for any changes in respect to what is allowed on the premises,” said Di Donato “It was a place of assembly already and the capacity will be exactly the same. In fact, we are reducing the capacity of the property because it did have the hall itself as well as the classrooms, all which were able to be used as places of assembly, so by turning them into bedrooms we are reducing the number of guests on site.”

When pressed again, Di Donato said he believed it was in the range of 80 guests.

Councillor Phil St Jean asked if there was any thought given to maintaining the street frontage as a landscape area and putting the parking in behind the building instead.

Di Donato explained that the parking was a requirement given to them by the County and the zoning.

“The drawings show that there will be landscaping all across the front with additional trees so you will not be able to see the parking lot itself,” he said.

“We also have a site plan control requirement,” added Legere. “So there would be potential to push the parking into the rear. There is certainly space to look at a number of options.”

Much of the conversation centred around water—specifically how and where it would be sourced. Councillor Janice Maynard asked what the plan was to have enough water to run an establishment of this type.

Legere admitted he had limited answers, but was working with a hydrologist.

“We just received the PEER review comments so we were waiting for those to make additional steps to address the water matter. If we can make the well work we will, if not we will have to look for a location for another well,” said Legere, who noted there would be a cistern on site for fire protection for the facility.

Maynard then asked if there was a shore well still attached to the property.

“It’s not the plan at the moment to use the shore well,” said Legere. “There was a new well dug a number of years ago. The plan was to use that, but if its simply not going to work, we are going to figure it out.”

Di Donato added that the water requirement from the County shouldn’t change.

“We are reducing the number of people, but because it becomes a commercial entity, we will be able to do the upgrades for water for a first class facility,” he said. “The current building in its current use wouldn’t require us to do anything at all with the well. The concern about us using more water—we are not going to be using any more water than currently would be used in the zoning, we are only asking for this to become a commercial enterprise instead of a non-profit.”

Mayor Steve Ferguson had questions about who would be using the facility.

“Who is going to be assembling? Is this going to be an event space? Is the culinary school going to be permanent yearround?” he asked.

Legere said the current gym space would be used as the assembly hall.

“There will be various types of events— birthdays, weddings—that type of thing. It’s not specific to weddings. It’s just general event venue space,” he said.

Di Donato then added that the purpose was to train staff for the larger corporation.

“We currently have 2,000 employees in our group, all in culinary. We have two Michelin restaurants in Canada. We have trained chefs, and we will bring our other key members to improve their abilities. One of the reasons we needed the bedrooms was because without that it wouldn’t be feasible to bring the team out here and provide the culinary school,” said Di Donato.

He added that he wasn’t sure how many events they would offer.

“Obviously we would like to maximize on that, mostly in the summer time. With event catering, most of the things are brought in and out so there is very little disruption with respect to the property itself,” he added.

But the conversation yet again circled back to the source of water.

“Where is the old shore well? Are you getting the water from the Bay of Quinte?,” asked Councillor Brad Nieman.

Di Donato claimed that the Bay of Quinte was the source of the shore well.

“The shore well was not in the Bay of Quinte, it was in Lake on the Mountain, with a right of way to the well,” stated North Marysburgh Councillor Dave Harrison.

This led Councillor Nieman to ask the tough question.

“If you don’t know where the water is right now, how do we go forward?”

We are a first class operation in terms of training and event space,” said Di Donato. “We will have sufficient water and come up with the correct solutions to make that happen.”

County Planner Emily Overholt noted that staff also asked technical questions about the water source, and said the proponents team should be providing more specifics before the decision meeting.

Councillor Roy Pennell believed the application was simply too premature.

“If we were looking at someone wanting to build a house, the very first thing we look at is if there enough water and where is it coming from. This is premature, because obviously they don’t know where it is coming from.”

Councillor Maynard concurred.

“We’ve got a well that they did test and was not good with a very low recovery rate. You are on an escarpment. I would have to say that the amount of water at an event centre would far exceed what some grade school children used in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Water is critical, especially when you look at a summer like this when people who usually have good wells now don’t have good wells.”

A decision meeting will come at a future date. Time will tell if a water source can be found.