Condos, Water, Trails And Who Is Watching You
By John Swartz
Orillia council budged a little last Monday when ratifying a committee meeting recommendation on the common elements condominium issue, which adopted some procedures in the permit process and disbands the working group.
Councillor Tim Lauer offered an amendment:
“If the citizen group decides to continue their efforts, staff be directed to provide the following, the number of common element condominium units by type, vertically and horizontally built by the City of Orillia, the publicly available municipal property assessment roles be made available for inspection at the City Centre, and that the citizen group be encouraged to communicate their concerns and report accordingly to the provincial government.”
A common elements condominium working group was set up by council to address a number of issues condo owners have, particularly those in the North Lake development, but not exclusively. Top of the list are property taxation and municipal services received, along with some issues and what buyers are told before they buy.
“Nobody thought about what the hell they were doing when they (the province) introduced it in 2001. They didn’t look forward to say our 50 unit condo in North Lake Village, 50 of us are responsible for maybe a 50 or hundred thousand dollar road repair. We’re all on fixed incomes, retired,” said Scott Maclagan. He spoke with SUNonline/Orillia following council and organized condo owners. He contends common element condo owners pay the same rate of tax as other homeowners.
“If you get one of those at $400,000, they’re paying, let’s say, $4,000 taxes; we’re paying exactly the same, but not getting the full services,” Maclagan said. Essentially condo developments of this type are treated as one address regardless of how many homes and all services (roads, water pipes, etc.) are not municipal responsibilities.
The motion council passed directs new permits require developers to disclose construction details and drawings, including changes made during construction from original plans.
“We don’t know the quality of the infrastructure when we buy,” said Maclagan. “We’ve got an underground water stream up there (North Lake) that undermines, there’s 7 homes built at right angles to where I am and all the basements flooded.” He’s worried erosion will necessitate road work sooner than normally expected. He also said information he asked for before buying was answered differently by different people and some things were not even mentioned.
“We would never have bought. Honestly. I would have bought a standalone home,” Maclagan said of what he knows now.
Mayor Steve Clarke had some reservations about what the condo owners want.
“I’m not sure if I agree with all their contentions, but they are certainly entitled to come forward and get the information they can,” he said of the amendment. He also recognized other municipalities are beginning to have the same issues brought to them.
“There are a number around the table and in other municipalities are trying to understand why this isn’t being dealt with at the province,” said Clarke. However, he believes one solution, changing assessments, may not work out in favour of condo owners.
“There is a prevailing belief if they were to receive the consideration they are seeking in terms of service alteration and a different condo fee structure that the relative assessment by MPAC will rise with a corresponding rise in property taxes.”
Maclagan said some condo owners have tried to get reassessed, but it’s a case of while one side, the municipality, treats all as one, the province doesn’t.
“You can’t do a bloc appeal. We all had to appeal individually, everyone got turned down,” said Maclagan.
Clarke also said making municipal records available to the working group may take some time because staff are currently working with a number of development projects.
“The information will be there, it just may not be turned around and ready for the next day,” Clarke said. Lauer said he supports the working group.
“I, as a councillor, am more than willing to continue to work with this group,” said Lauer.
Staff reported to council several times their hands are tied providing services to condo developments. One item, snow plowing, staff said was a problem because of the width of development roads, they’re too narrow.
“I lived in Markham for ten years. Thete we had the driveways on the back. It’s a lane way same size as what we’ve got (North lake) as a main street. They (municipality) plowed it, they did everything no problem,” said Maclagan. His point was some of the things the City say they can’t do are not the case elsewhere.
Maclagan told SUNonline/Orillia even in Orillia each common element development have some differences. As an example, he said those in the Villages of Leacock Point only the interior spaces are individually owned and common elements start with exterior walls, which is not the case at North Lake.
The point of putting in writing the assistance and access to information to the working group is so they can arm themselves with better data when they take their case to Queen’s Park again.
“I wrote to the minister of finance, went to the minister of municipal affairs, we developed a report already for them,” said Maclagan.
Water In The News
The most interesting thing to emerge from last Monday’s Orillia regular council meeting was not on the agenda and came out during the announcements at the end of the meeting.
Councillor Ted Emond had a message from the environment department regarding the safety of Orillia’s water supply. He comments were regarding a Toronto Star story of that day about an investigation of municipal water systems across Canada which revealed many municipalities have high lead levels in their drinking water.
“I received an email subsequently during the day asking me whether this was an issue in the City,” Emond said. “I did inquire of our environment services people.”
He read from the reply he received:
“The city has been sampling for and tracking lead levels in drinking water in accordance with the requirements of Ontario regulation 170 and our drinking water license from a variety of sampling stations throughout our distribution system. The City received relief status from lead sampling after 2011, which means more than 90% of the drinking water samples we collected were below the maximum acceptable concentration for lead established by the provincial ministry.”
“The City continues to collect and analyze samples on a reduced frequency. All of our analytic results have been below the maximum acceptable concentration level,” the reply stated.
“This suggests to me that those who read the article today and were concerned about Orillia need not be concerned. Our system is adequately addressing the issue and we continue to monitor that, even though it’s not on as concentrated an effort as we might have been doing earlier on,” Emond said.
Trail Name
Another item that had no details on the distributed agenda was a notice of motion to go into closed session mid-meeting to waive the City’s policy regarding naming.
The policy dictates how trails are named:
Trails may be named/renamed in consideration of the following:
• Commemorating Orillians.
• Commemorating service clubs and businesses.
• Commemorating a major financial donor to the development of a major portion of the trail system.
• Geography.
• History.
• Environmental characteristics or attributes.
And,
If the nomination honours or commemorates an individual:
• The nominee’s community involvement must be outstanding/renowned.
• The nominee has achieved national or international acclaim.
• The nominee has made a significant contribution to the development of the trail system.
• The primary focus of the benevolent activities of the nominee must be for the betterment of the City and our citizens, with no focus of personal financial gain.
When council resumed the public meeting they voted to waive the policy and Mayor Steve Clarke gave details of an OPP request the City name a trail after Greg Stobbart. Stobbart was an OPP sergeant from Milton who was killed while off duty and cycling when he was hit by a truck.
“We can get this done in an expeditious manner. I would much prefer this to go through RAC (recreation advisory committee),” Clarke said. He said the request came from OPP commissioner Thomas Carrique to expedite a naming. The section of trail suggested is along Old Barrie Road between Highway 11 and University Avenue.
Video Camera Surveillance
Clarke had another notice of motion, but with details provided in the agenda. Replacing the City’s video camera surveillance system was the topic. The City currently has cameras at three intersections on Mississaga Street and on Centennial Drive.
“That particular system probably should have been installed in a slightly more wholesome manner and the ongoing operations were problematic. For as much value as we got from it, there is common belief that we should have received better value and better use of the system,” Clarke told council. His opinion of them has changed since being a member of the police services board.
“I now believe there is some significant benefit to the cameras in terms of there being a deterrent to potential crime and certainly post-incident being able to solve some of those issues,” Clarke said.
He wanted council to approve sending a request for $150,000 to budget committee for a new system, or to look at another option using privately owned cameras.
“We’ve discovered something in Halton Region that has a system called SCRAM (Security Camera and Mapping). That is purely police driven,” said Clarke.
If used here police would keep a record of locations where cameras face public areas, and in some cases encourage property owners to install cameras and participate in the program.
Councillor Pat Hehn was concerned the City would be losing the ability to be able to react as things happen because the OPP stated in the report they will not be able to monitor cameras at the new detachment.
“I think the benefit of being able to have that detection in present time, which we would lose completely if we went with SCRAM or some of the other alternatives.” said councillor Hehn. She also wanted to know how property owners would pay for camera installation, if there was an option for grants possibly through the Community Improvement Plan.
“I think there are some issues. It would have to be a well laid out program and maybe an understanding it’s a one-time expense,” said Clarke. The matter was sent to budget committee.
