Council Agenda Notes – February 5, 2019 (edit 2019-02-13)
06 Wednesday Feb 2019
Written by parry034 in Parry Sound, Video
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Council Minutes, economic development, Growth, Infrastructure, Opinion, parry sound, Planning, safety, Seguin, Town Council
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I have removed the link to the abridged version of the council meeting. My bandwidth limit was used up. I’ll have a different approach for the upcoming meeting that shouldn’t have the same bandwidth issues. The Town’s video link is still available.)
I’m trying something a little bit different with this post. Some short comments on the past Town of Parry Sound council meeting stream, and an abridged version of the stream for those interested in what I consider to be the key issues discussed at the meeting.
The full council meeting video is available online and lasts a little over 2 hours. My edited version of the meeting is a little bit over 42 minutes, a savings of about two-thirds. I have included all of the meeting discussion for the selected items to ensure that there is nothing ‘lost in translation’.
The items covered (with start time if you want to skip ahead) are:
- Questions of Staff – Snow Removal Policy and Realities 0.00.10
- Item 7.1 – Town Staff Salary Adjustment 0.04.32
- Item 9.1.2 – Smelter Wharf Culvert Replacement 0.5.15
- Item 9.1.1 – Four Way Stop Isabella & Gibson 0.19.31
- Item 9.2.1 – Seguin Zoning By-law Amendment 0.29.59
In some cases the discussions went on too long in my opinion. A couple of my thoughts on the issues:
Item 9.1.2 – A contract is a contract. I think the Town is being very generous. Council has been much tougher on homeowners who do not have the resources of a major corporation. These developers would not be here if they weren’t able to make money. And had they known what was under the ground they of course would never have agreed to the contract. Had I known how Apple stock would do I would have bought shares 15 years ago.
Item 9.2.1 – Really? You want to tell Seguin what they can do with their land? I think the advice suggested in the R&R was appropriate. Advise them that property owners will not be eligible for Town services. Putting retail on this plot of land is a smart business move if the environmental requirements can be met and the businesses won’t require Town services. A $50,000 municipal tax bill in Parry Sound would be only $20-25,000 on this property. (Note: school taxes are not included. They are based on assessment not municipal struck tax rates.) That’s a big savings. In the end Council decided to start discussions with Seguin to add the property to the Town of Parry Sound. Good luck on that. We know what happened last time when the property owners in a neighboring section of Seguin were asked the question. What you want and what you can demand or negotiate are two separate things. Ask the orange guy who is the self titled ‘master of the deal’.
Here is the link (removed 2019-02-13) to the abridged 2019-02-05 council meeting video. I am hosting the video on a service I contract with. The full version of the meeting is available on YouTube through this link.
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February 7, 2019 at 9:50 am
Hi Joe,
I’m trying to understand this … the developer was responsible for fixing the culvert at the Salt Dock … is he not now? Did he go before Council to ask for the cost to be removed?
Thanks, Lynne
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February 7, 2019 at 10:35 am
Lynne:
I had wondered what was going on this fall when I saw the construction. Here is what I understand:
With three buildings under development I suppose the developer needed to better manage the rainwater in the area. What they wanted to do was to direct the water under the Salt Dock Road/Smelter Wharf to the Big Sound. To do that they required Town permission. I believe they negotiated with the Town that they, the developer, would undertake the construction for an estimated cost of about $32,000 with both parties paying 50%, or $16K each.
Once construction was started, which was under the supervision of the developer, they discovered that the soil in the area that was being removed was contaminated. This required the whole process to be revised and additional cost was incurred with the disposal of the contaminated materials. The additional cost is about $75,000.
The contract between the developer and the town specified that the Town would pay $16,000 for the project and that the developer had full responsibility for any additional costs related to the project. The developer obviously was concerned about the extra cost and went back to town staff to negotiate some sort of cost-sharing agreement. Despite what the contract stated the Town offered to cover 50% of the additional cost associated with the remediation. This means that each of the parties will be paying an additional $37,000 or so.
In the deputation portion of the meeting the developer made a presentation suggesting that they really didn’t think that they should be on the hook for this amount of money. That’s when the discussion went before Council and Council punted on the issue saying that they wanted further negotiation with the developer. It will be brought before Council again at the next meeting.
At the meeting Peter Brown mentioned that the developer did not do what would be considered to be normal activities before undergoing the construction. This would include doing test bores to determine if blasting would be required and to determine the nature of the soil underneath. If the town had been doing the project they would have done the necessary bores and then decided whether they would leave the soil in place or would undertake remediation. If the developer had done this work they obviously would have returned to the Town and perhaps the project would have been rethought or there would’ve been a different discussion regarding costs. It’s entirely possible that had they known the facts there would have been no changes made to the current wastewater management program. The developer suggested this in their deputation. But they just jumped into the project. It is called the Smelter Wharf which should have tipped off somebody. It’s also at the bottom of a hill where contaminants are likely to have settled. The contaminents apparently are sodium (surprise, surprise) and boron (perhaps more of a surprise).
My sense is that the two parties are in this together and the Town has graciously offered to pay 50% of all the costs, not just 50% of the initial estimate of $32,000. Doug McCann at the meeting thought that this was a little unfair to the developer. In my opinion a contract is a contract and I think sometimes when circumstances demand you are generous and offer flexibility. But, you don’t sit down and take on the obligations for another party. Had it not been a project request by the developer the Town would not even be on the hook for the original half of $32,000.
I hope this helps. If you watch the deputation by the developer in the full video and the discussion later on by Council I think you get a better sense of what’s going on.
jo
Josef Bossart 10 Redwood Dr. Parry Sound, ON P2A 2S4 T: 705/774-9350 C: 705/746-0136 E: jbossart@bossart4.com B: parrysounds.com B: parrysights.com