Minden Hills council, at its June 11 meeting, voted in favour of buying surplus waterfront land on Mountain Lake from the province of Ontario.
Director of the finance department, Zack Drinkwalter, brought a report to last month’s meeting, recommending council use $50,000 from parkland reserves and $580,000 from shoreline road allowance reserves for the $630,000 purchase.
Drinkwalter said the province declared the MNR land as surplus; and that stage one environmental and stage one and two archaeological studies have been completed with no further action recommended from the studies.
Deputy mayor Lisa Schell – referencing how council was unable to secure land for the Bob Lake Association for a boat launch over a protracted period of years – commented, “obviously, we have to do this; and on behalf of the people of Bob Lake, I wish we had had an opportunity like this when that piece of property was being sold … had the township known. We don’t want to have the people of Mountain Lake being in the same situation, so I’m glad that we’re moving forward with this.” The Bob Lake cottagers lost their public boat launch a decade ago.
Councillor-at-large Tammy McKelvey added, “I’m glad we’re going to do this. It protects another access point to the lake. I, too, wish the previous council had looked at the Bob Lake thing better.” She said it was a different situation, as it involved private land, versus public land.
Mayor Bob Carter said it was not just access to Mountain Lake, but Horseshoe Lake as well.
“It’s the last piece of property on these lakes. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t come along and decide to sell it, and you say ‘can we wait until the next budget cycle’.” He said council had to make a choice now, or risk the land being sold to a private developer.
“I think we have no choice; we have those reserves for things such as this.”
In an interview after the meeting, Carter said he believed people had been launching their boats there for many years. “We haven’t looked into whether we have to improve it or build something or anything like that, other than we knew we couldn’t not buy it.”
Bob Lake residents not happy
Bob Lake property owner, Dave Roberts, said many on his lake are concerned with council’s decision.
He said he has a deep history with “the very related Bob Lake public boat launch fiasco. From that history, I know we’ve been wrestling with the township for 10 years now to restore the Bob Lake public boat launch they maintained for half a century… to no avail.
“But now they’re spending $630K to buy land hosting a boat launch on Mountain Lake that was never advertised or maintained as a municipal public launch, without any request from, or coordination with, the local lake association… all when there is an option to use the municipal public launch on the connected Horseshoe Lake. The irony should be obvious.”
