Dysart council has turned down an application from Rogers to install a new 90-metre cell tower on Minnicock Lake Road, though the project may not be completely dead.

Following a debate July 26 over the proposed location of the tower, councillors split a 3-3 vote in a move that saw the project – the first to come to the municipality through the Eastern Ontario Regional Network’s (EORN) cell gap initiative – defeated. Deputy mayor Pat Kennedy was absent from Tuesday’s meeting. Tie votes result in defeated motions.

Mayor Andrea Roberts labelled council’s decision an embarrassment.

“I’m not sure what the next steps are. I’m very disheartened,” Roberts said. “We will be left behind in the dust. If this is the legacy this council wants to leave, that’s what it is.”

Roberts and councillors Walt McKechnie and Nancy Wood-Roberts voted in favour of the proposal, while Tammy Donaldson, Larry Clarke and John Smith shot it down.

Clarke said he was concerned the project appeared to fly in the face of Dysart’s policy 38 – legislation introduced in 2014 regulating the use and installation of cell towers. That policy stipulates any proposed towers should be located a minimum of one-kilometre from the nearest residence; be camouflaged or designed to blend with the surroundings, with the natural-looking Mono-pine structures preferred; be set back a minimum of 60 metres from the nearest road, and feature the minimum required lighting to meet Transport Canada safety standards.

Earlier that day, council heard from Michael Butz, who lives in one of 40 residences within a one-kilometre radius of the proposed site. He called on council to uphold the requirements outlined in policy 38. He noted a petition organized by his neighbours, opposing the project, had garnered over 100 signatures.

He identified a potential site 4.5 kilometres south of the Minnicock Lake Road location, which he said would be a “perfect fit” for a tower, with the nearest residence over a kilometre away.

Rogers spokesperson Eric Belchamber told council that location wouldn’t be viable.

“Having a tower one kilometre away from where people live isn’t practical… It wouldn’t have a meaningful impact on improving service and achieving the EORN goals,” he said. “Policy 38 is one of the most onerous policies I’ve come across. It was written with what seems to be a sentiment of not wanting cell towers [in Dysart].”

Smith said if Rogers had issues with the policy, they should have been raised when the process began 18 months ago.

Donaldson said her belief is that 5G technology is unsafe for human health.

“There is no health risk whatsoever to humans through this technology,” Belchamber said.

Christian Lee, a site acquisition specialist with Rogers, expressed confusion over Donaldson’s comments given that Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) outlined in its information for municipal councils that these type of concerns were unfounded and unwarranted and should not be part of the decision-making process.

Belchamber noted this was only the second out of around 85 EORN projects he’s worked on in the past year to have been rejected. He mentioned Rogers was working on five other cell tower location sites in Dysart.

Roberts asked Clarke, Smith and Donaldson what would have to happen to change their minds. Clarke said he would be willing to revisit the issue should council revise policy 38. CAO Tamara Wilbee said it would be brought forward at next month’s committee of the whole meeting.

“We have policies in place for a reason. Our residents are looking at us to uphold policy 38… and I think we have to do that in this case,” Clarke said. “If it can be revised and the site can still work within the policy, then I’ll support it.”

Algonquin Highlands mayor Carol Moffatt issued a public apology on behalf of the township to residents of Bear Lake Road July 21, stating the municipality was in the wrong following a long-standing dispute over winter maintenance of the thoroughfare.

Council has been at loggerheads with residents, now mobilized under the Bear Lake Winter Maintenance Association (BLWMA), for decades, with property owners lobbying the municipality to allow them to plow the road during the winter.

Due to safety concerns, township staff has not been providing winter maintenance. They also prohibited residents from carrying out the work themselves or contracting a snow removal company to do it, citing liability concerns.

Frustrated by a lack of movement on the issue, BLWMA reached out to a lawyer to find out what options they had. What happened next was “gobsmacking”, Moffatt said.

“The lawyer insisted that the township doesn’t and never has had jurisdiction over the road, so council agreed to take a deeper look at it. It turns out they were right and the township has never had formal ownership of Bear Lake Road,” she said. “It’s a humble watershed moment for this municipality, and I think it’s really important to make an apology. We unknowingly failed some people and we have to do better.”

Moffatt said the township had documentary evidence suggesting the former Sherbourne township assumed ownership of the road in 1971, but that paperwork is wrong. Bear Lake Road is, and has always been, Crown land.

With this revelation, Moffatt said the municipality had a decision to make. Staff have carried out minor maintenance on the road during the summer for more than 50 years. Now, because the township doesn’t own the road, it has no obligation to maintain it, nor does it have any authority to police issues.

That doesn’t mean council is going to walk away, though. The township’s lawyer presented options to council: immediately cease all maintenance, leaving the property owners to take care of any required work themselves; try to obtain full and formal jurisdiction of the road; or request the province close the road during the winter.

“I hardly think council is going to want to just walk away from this,” Moffatt said, indicating a fourth option, where the township works with residents to come up with a solution, could be on the cards.

“Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as saying ‘OK, you take care of the plowing, we’ll take care of the grading and everyone is happy’,” Moffatt added, “We have to go through a formal process of seeing the options more specifically laid out and discuss how we would formally reach out to folks to say ‘what do you want us to do there?’

“I’d like council to consider a variation on the options, perhaps on a trial basis, to see what works. It could be a win-win, but it comes with some caveats that come with Crown land that some people might not like,” she added.

Staff will spend the next couple of months investigating potential hybrid solutions, with a report to be brought back to council in September.

Adventure Haliburton will have to wait a while to find out if County council will partner with it to expand its use of Driftscape – an Ontario-made exploration app.

The group, that represents tourism operators and accommodation providers, launched the app – which functions as a digital, interactive roadmap for adventures – last July 29.

Its vice-president, Randy Pielsticker, came to the July 20 County council meeting. The County gave it $5,000 last year to help with initial costs. While the app promotes private businesses, Adventure Haliburton promoted 15 municipal points of interest.

Pielsticker said they’d had a “great working relationship” with Driftscape the past 1.5 years. He added the platform had grown to nearly 60,000 subscribers by June 2022, from 30,000 in February 2021.

The app is available for iOS and Android devices and can be accessed on internet browsers.

For now, Pielsticker said they had created a basic digital footprint, but wanted to take it to the next level. For example, he said they would like to add tours of downtown Haliburton and Minden, and quests, such as digital scavenger hunts. They’d also like to better promote events and provide navigational assistance for events such as Hike Haliburton and the Studio Tour.

His ask was another $5,000 from the County, for each of 2022-2024, to pay for the annual subscription. Adventure Haliburton would match that to maintain the development of the site and market and promote it.

“Since we’ve taken on the project, it really has grown, and much further beyond the initial launch that we had anticipated,” Pielsticker said. “The challenge is Adventure Haliburton is a not-for-profit group and we are run by volunteers. We do have the budget to continue to develop this software program, this marketing platform to try to really take full advantage of it and that’s where we’re looking for your help.”

He said the plan is to share the data with the County to, “help inform the decision-making process of County tourism, help analyze trends, target markets we need to offer extra support to, and key performance indicators.”

Warden Liz Danielsen said, “it does sound like the strategy that you developed for 2021 was successful from the numbers that you’ve given us, and your strategy going forward has got some pretty exciting ideas that will probably work well for us all.”

However, councillors said they wanted to hear from economic development and tourism staff before committing to anything. Director of tourism, Tracie Bertrand, did not attend the meeting and there was no staff report accompanying Pielsticker’s delegation.

Council was also concerned since they have already set the County budget for 2022 and are soon going to be going into lame duck mode. That means they don’t want to made decisions during an election period.

Coun. Pat Kennedy noted the County had been successful in getting a $50,000 grant from Ontario’s Highlands Tourism Organization, including $25,000 for data collection and $25,000 for marketing activities so that might cover the Adventure Haliburton ask.

Council deferred a decision until after a staff report at a future meeting.

Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has started a months-long project along Hwy. 118 between Haliburton and Carnarvon.

“The purpose of this rehabilitation is to improve the safety and operation of Hwy. 118, including pavement rehabilitation, slope stabilization, and improvements to intersections, drainage and guide rails,” said a spokesperson for the ministry July 26.

Contracted workers have cut trees from more than 300 feet of waterfront adjacent to the roadway beside the Gardens of Haliburton.

For some Highlands residents, the sight of the tree clearing was alarming.

Susan Hay of Environment Haliburton! struggled to find out what work was occurring. She said the County of Haliburton and Dysart et al could not provide further information since the highway is provincially maintained.

“You would think that MTO would have notified someone in the community that a project of this size was going to take place,” said Hay, who eventually contacted the ministry.

Hay said she understood the necessity of the road maintenance project, but “it seems tragic that all those trees had to come down all the way to the shoreline. Not just for the trees and the stabilization of the shoreline but for the herons and other wildlife that those trees provided habitat for. And, for the beauty and the character that the trees gave to the lake.”

Further projects along the highway are scheduled to be completed by the fall.

The MTO did not respond to questions about how crews would mitigate the impact of tree clearing on local wildlife, or whether notice was given to residents, before deadline.

The MTO encouraged residents and travellers to visit 511on.ca or twitter.com/511Ontario for updates regarding the work and any impacts to traffic. This information can also be accessed from the Ontario 511 app.

Traffic control signals could be constructed on County Road 21 at Industrial Park Road in Haliburton next year, director of public works, Robert Sutton, told councillors at their July 20 meeting.

By way of background, he reminded councillors that in the fall of 2020, in partnership with Dysart et al, an application to extend the multi-use pathway on County Road 21 was submitted under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program COVID-19 Resilience Infrastructure stream.

The project proposed to install a pedestrian crossover at the intersection and extend the existing pathway from Industrial Road, west along the north side of the road to the traffic signals at the Independent Grocer.

The estimated cost was $200,000 with the County and Dysart each applying for a $100,000 grant. In the spring of 2021, the application was approved with the federal government contributing $160,000 and the province $40,000.

Sutton said as staff started planning, they were concerned about traffic volumes at the intersection. He added the original application and project scope was based on the 2017 County Road 21 corridor study completed by AECOM.

The study recommended a pathway and pedestrian crossover at Industrial Road.

But Sutton said due to the passage of time, impacts from COVID and increased development in the area, County and Dysart staff thought it would be a good idea to review the five-year-old study.

“AECOM completed the memo in December of 2021 and concluded and recommended that a full traffic control signal was now warranted at this intersection,” Sutton said.

The preliminary estimated cost is $350,000, with the County picking up the added costs.

“Once the senior levels of government approve the change in scope of the project, staff will develop and advertise a request for proposal to obtain a consultant to design the project this coming fall and winter as well as determine a more accurate estimated total cost of the project. Construction is projected to be substantially complete by the end of 2023,” Sutton said.

Dysart et al mayor Andrea Roberts commented, “It is an extremely busy intersection and will only get busier when the student residence is built and, potentially, a phase three of the industrial park.”

She added, “this is great for that area. It will also help calm traffic, I believe, because it’s very hard sometimes to even get a break in traffic. I know. It’s my neighbourhood and a very busy area, particularly in the summer.”