Council learned on November 28 that the Hunters Bay Trail extension project is now estimated to cost approximately $614,000.
The Town’s portion of the project amounted to $75,000 over two years as well as staff time, but now council is facing an additional $34,620 as a result of trail modifications and extensions that have been made in accordance with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and other external agencies. Other funding will come from PanAm, Trans Canada Trail and the District of Muskoka, but council was asked to decide whether to move forward in light of the budget shortfall, along with yearly maintenance expenses associated with the trail extension.
Councillor Bob Stone said given the Town’s other commitments he could not support the expenditure. Others argued that the money should be borne by development through development charges and cash in lieu of parkland reserves.
In the end, council approved the additional expenditure and the funds for the project will be coming from development charges rather than the taxation base.
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What I’m hoping folks keep in mind is the fact that developers are shouldering the additional money through parkland reserves, not the taxpayers. When land is developed, there is a small amount of money taken aside and put into this reserve fund. As tempting as it sounds to take money dedicated to parks and redirecting it to roads, it’s actually against our laws. I encourage all taxpayers to submit ideas for parkland improvements/developments. Also let’s not forget that the bulk of this project is being funded by other levels of government as well as the Trans-Canada Trail association and that the money will be spent in our community. No project is perfect but this one has a lot to offer our community.
Lets get our priority right. An extra $114,000 for a walking trail when our town roads need urgent repair, where is the sense in this. I bet we get the same old same old when elections come round where every candidate promises that roads are their top priority. Let them drive around town at 30km per hour and see how they manage.
Hi Brian,
I found this map of the trail on the Town’s website. It might give you a clearer indication of what is being planned.
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Screen-Shot-2016-12-10-at-1.11.30-PM.png
For $614,000 one might expect that somewhere the media could manage to produce a map that showed the existing trail and exactly where and in what format the “additional” part of the trail is to run. So far all I have managed to find is this map on Doppler, which is so small as to be impossible to determine what is actually to be built.
Do you think maybe Doppler could come up with such a map?
It better be one heck of a piece of trail for this much money but then it does involve crossing Highway 11 I think and that involves a government agency and so maybe this explains it all. As a matter of fact, if this cost is in any way determined by a government ministry, based on my experience, I’d suggest town council read any agreement very carefully as this cost might well be a “per year” cost.
Fix the roads in town. Never mind wasting money on this crap.