County of Frontenac staffer, Joe Gallivan, spoke to County councillors more than a year ago about communal water and sewer systems that could help with the Highlands’ housing woes.
The director of economic development and planning will be back Oct. 17 at an all-day housing summit in Minden.
Communal services are shared drinking water and wastewater systems, servicing groups of residences and businesses clustered together.
In Haliburton County, most new developments use municipal services in Haliburton and Minden villages, or are on private well and septic.
A year on since presenting to County council, Gallivan said, “there’s the whole idea we’ve come up with about why use of communal services is a good thing, especially in rural Ontario. Now, we really have to refine that idea on how do we make it work, so when developers show up, we have our act together,” he told The Highlander.
They have established the Frontenac Municipal Services Corporation (FMSC), which represents the four lower-tier townships and the County. The County cannot sit on the board because it is not allowed to own water systems, but the lower-tier municipalities have representation. They have also set up a technical group, working on best practises.
Gallivan said there are a lot of systems on the market, including ones made in Ontario, and they are installed worldwide. “The question the group has been asking is ‘should we have a shortlist of two or three or four of these systems so when a developer shows up we can tell them you’re building one of these boxes because we know about them, we’re going to have other ones installed in our region?” He said they are in the process of hiring an operator to manage the systems in the short-term, as the FMSC has no staff.
Gallivan has been touring townships, looking at systems.
“It’s getting out of the land use planning and the idea part into the engineering part,” he said.
They have amended their County official plan to specifically put policies in place to support communal servicing, “and all the reasons why it’s a good thing.
“Now, I’m out talking to the four lower-tiers, saying ‘you need to have conversations with your community to talk about communal services; where you want them to go – in all the villages in your community or just certain ones of a certain scale that have banks and medical centres and you want that village to grow.
“Do you want them on lakes or not? Do you want to use them to promote resort development or not? Do you want to have them in the rural areas and if so, at what scale’? You need to really talk to your citizens to figure out where you want this to go.”
Gallivan said they have three projects in three townships at the pilot stage; one advanced to the point that construction will start in about a year.
“In the middle of a village, on a main street, for seniors and mixed housing, that could not happen with standard well and septic.”
Gallivan said one misconception is that people think the cost of communal servicing would exceed traditional well and septic but, “that’s not really true. In Frontenac County it can cost $35,000 to $45,000 for septic and half, or less than half of that, for a well. If you run that over 20 years and factor in repairs or replacement, a monthly utility bill is less than that cost.”
The facts: The 2024 Haliburton County Housing Summit will be held Oct. 24, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Minden Hills Community Centre. It will feature keynote speakers Claire de Souza from the Town of Collingwood and Joe Gallivan from the County of Frontenac. There will be panels on worker housing and densification. RSVP for lunch: fay@placesforpeople.ca
