The extent of development being proposed on Langmaid’s Island in Lake of Bays is raising concerns not just among surrounding residents, but Huntsville’s Planning Committee members as well.
The owners of Langmaid’s Island, which is roughly 147 acres and consists of two land masses, have also purchased an additional mainland property to help provide access and parking to the island. Their proposal involves the creation of 36 island lots to be developed with single residential homes.
According to planning documents listed on the Township of Lake of Bays’ website, the frontage of the proposed lots would range in size from 295.9 feet to a maximum size of 1,039.3 feet. The development would have access from the mainland at 3933 South Portage Road, which is a vacant lot roughly 0.25 acres in size that has historically served as access for the island. The proponents have also secured access from 4215 South Portage Road, which is roughly 2.89 acres and contains a tourist establishment known as Beauview Cottage Resort.
Rezoning for both properties would need to be approved in order to establish a waterfront landing as the permitted use, provide parking for up to 20 vehicles and docking for 10 boats on 3933 South Portage Road, and a waterfront landing as an additional permitted use and parking for up to 100 vehicles on 4215 South Portage Road.
Three municipalities will be involved in the planning approval process. The Township of Lake of Bays would have to approve the proposed island development, which would require an Official Plan amendment as well as a close analysis of the impact such a development would have on the designated heritage areas of the island. The District Municipality of Muskoka is responsible for plans of subdivision associated with the creation of separate island lots, while the lands intended for parking and access to the island fall under the jurisdiction of the Town of Huntsville, where the island access lots on South Portage Road are located.
Town of Huntsville Manager of Planning Process, Kirstin Maxwell, told Huntsville’s Planning Committee at its June 13 meeting that as far as the planning process is concerned, approvals would first have to come from both the Township of Lake of Bays and the District, before committee makes a recommendation on zoning amendment requirements for the properties on South Portage Road.
“In terms of process, there’s the subdivision application that has to be approved at District, there’s an Official Plan amendment in Lake of Bays as well as a development permit amendment and then there’s our zoning amendments,” Maxwell told committee. “So we would be looking to Lake of Bays to do their approval process before we would consider the zoning amendment, because if there’s no use established for the island… then there’s no requirement on our side to proceed with the zoning amendments.”
A joint public meeting was held by all three approval bodies on June 2 at the Lake of Bays Community Centre. Whether the applicants will return with a revised proposal to address concerns raised at that meeting is not yet clear, said Maxwell.
Several councillors and planning committe members who attended the meeting told Huntsville Doppler that it was extremely well attended. “There was a great public turnout and I would say there were about 30 deputations from cottagers, homeowners, residents and they were mostly negative about the size of the development on Langmaid’s and the impact it would have visually, on water quality and ecologically,” noted Councillor Jason FitzGerald.
He said quite a bit of information was presented at the meeting, which at times became heated particularly when the Mayor asked a man to leave. He said an area resident accused the Township of Lake of Bays of having already approved the project, given the significant funds that had already been expended by the island developers. “(Lake of Bays) Mayor Young stood up and said, ‘sir, you’re accusing us of fraud and I’m going to ask you to leave this meeting immediately,’” said FitzGerald, who also confirmed that the man did in fact leave.
Asked for his opinion on what’s being proposed on the island, he said:
I don’t think it’s responsible development. I don’t think it needs to be that scale.Huntsville Councillor Jason Fitzgerald who is also a member of Huntsville’s Planning Committee
Councillor Nancy Alcock, who chairs Huntsville’s Planning Committee, said the turnout at the June 2 meeting was “incredible.”
Councillor Jonathan Wiebe, also a member of Huntsville’s Planning Committee, concurred. He said attendance was at standing room only and all three municipalities involved in the approval process were well represented with councillors and municipal staff present. He also said the concerns expressed by area residents who attended the meeting were numerous and valid. “I think it’s going to take a lot of work to find the right balance,” he said of the amount of development that might be acceptable to all stakeholders.
“If I were a member of council in Lake of Bays, I’d be concerned with the scale of it. I think that they may be underestimating how much (infrastructure) is going to be needed for boat ownership, boat traffic, access to the island. I think it’s a far bigger issue into the future than maybe the proponents are leading on. I’d be very hesitant about it, I would be bargaining for less development and more conservation land on that property,” said Wiebe of the island.
“I echo all of that,” said Alcock, who was sitting beside Wiebe during the informal discussion following the Huntsville Planning Committee meeting. “From my perspective, it was hard for me not to have an opinion in a way because there was one report that was presented that suggested that they’re okay with the development, but they scaled it back from 36 to about 10 or 12 (lots) and the reason for that is they identified very clearly the areas that should not be developed at all.” Alcock was referring to a report put together by a consultant hired to examine the proposal. “I thought that was quite interesting because the way the plan of subdivision is now, it seems to blanket the entire Langmaid’s Island, even though there’s a recognition that there are some areas that are truly conservation, or natural heritage, or have features that are really important and there was this recognition that there are these areas, but somehow they’re divided into all of these private lots.” She said a revised plan would absolutely need to take those special areas into consideration.
There’s not as much stewardship when you slice it all up and hope that everyone takes care of their parcel. Environmental constraints are really about the whole. There are many constraints around waterfront and there are many factors to consider when dividing property up… just because you paid a lot of money and damned the torpedoes, I get to do this, I have lots of money – you shouldn’t always expect to have the full rein to develop at your whim.Huntsville Councillor Jonathan Wiebe who is also a member of the Town’s Planning Committee
Alcock added that there is also a buyer beware element to the development of that particular island. “In this situation there were identified natural heritage areas and there are some physical constraints, barriers on this property. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be any development, absolutely not, but I don’t think anyone should assume (anything),” she said, adding that those buying an island such as Langmaid’s should look at the history, surrounding properties and all constraints involving the island.
“When you’re on the water you’re not in a bubble. You’re part of a bigger community and a bigger fabric,” added Wiebe.
You can find more information on what’s being proposed here.
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The math alone doesn’t add up – 36 homes on an island needing water craft access and only 10 places to dock on the main land. Expensive lots, hold big expensive homes which means that each one will need [want] at least 1 landing craft.
I shudder to think of all the oil and gas slicks Lake of Bays will have to deal with, just with the commuter traffic. Additional traffic on the lake itself seems not to have been considered.
Big is often not better! Go small or go home. Save the heritage environment. Once gone it cannot be recovered.
My family has lived on Lake of Bays since 1905. My Grandfather was a good friend of Mr. Shaw who built Bigwin Inn and most of the gravel used to construct the Bigwin hotel came from my Grandfather’s farm, the old pit and haul road still being evident.
I’ve watched Lake of Bays develop over the years and it has changed a great deal.
Maybe this qualifies me to say something about what I’ve seen. Take it as a thought incentive if you like.
The small, “self built” cottages have had their day. This is the age of the “specialist” and now each morning and evening there is the “construction workers parade” of overbuilt pickup trucks and the landscapers trailers with their tanks of pesticides, fleets of mowers follows.
The dump trucks never stop as everything needs gravel to build.
One can’t blame these folks as they make a living at this work but the poor little roads take a bit of a beating as they were never built to withstand the size and quantity of vehicles that they get today. The District does rebuilds the “expensive way” and cannot keep pace with the damage in many cases but overall, our roads have never been better than they are today. This does not stop the complaints from residents who don’t like their fancy cars hitting potholes however.
The Horton’s breakfast wrappers and cups make it just past Dwight and then find a final resting place along the township roads. These roads, some of them have been designated as ‘scenic” by someone in government who shall forever remain nameless but one thing is for sure and that is that the speed limits, stop signs and signs requesting engine brakes not be used are mostly ignored,
The logic goes something like “well if we paid a half million for the lot we need to put at least a 2 million dollar cottage on the lot”.
I blame the our society in general, realtors and construction companies have no reason to restrain growth or prices as they get paid a percentage so the bigger the better seems to be the rule today.
Also, with machinery so powerful today it is possible (for a cost!) to build on land that was considered for all of past history to be “unbuildably difficult terrain”. Steep slopes, rock, swamp, lack of road access… nothing seems to get in the way of current developers. Cottage owners are building in places that in my youth nobody even considered to be a logical place to put a cottage. They blast rock, remove trees, clear out the lake bottom to suit their boats and all that goes with this.
Once established they invest in large and powerful boats that leave a wake so big no bird nests can survive and damage the shoreline in general. Some delight in boats so noisy one can hear their progress from Dwight all the way to Dorset on a calm night just sitting on your deck, yes it is loud enough to overpower the mosquitoes deadly whine!
Yes… growth and development have come to Lake of Bays. If the new owners do not like the way it is they simply change it, be it a rock, a creek or even the bugs (Bring on the insecticide spraying companies like I think they call it Muskoka Buzz or some such name.)
To their credit, the planners at the Township of Lake of Bays have attempted to mitigate these effects with things like their development permits, setbacks and tree retention by-laws however these by laws are to a large extent “complaint driven” so that in many cases the damage is done long before the officials show up to try to rectify the situation.
Also, given enough money to hire sharp planners and lawyers from the bigger cities, it seems possible to get around most of the Townships bylaws one way or another.
Ultimately the assessments and taxes on these shoreline properties are what pays for the Township operations. The shiny new trucks, the patches on the roads, the largest single staff of any business in the Township, all paid with nice “city quality” salaries and even the politicians busy crafting the by-laws to control it all so there is a bit of a conflict of interest at work here as well.
Take a boat ride around the lake and you will see lots cleared to the water. New lots on Bigwin Island fit this description in some places. They leave a few big trees and clear the rest. Surprise, surprise, when one cuts out 60% of the old growth, makes a big excavation, clears out most of the underbrush and trims the remaining big trees for a nice view…. well some of these remaining trees give up the struggle and die. It is natural but the effect is not good.
On Langmaids, this is what will happen, plus although it sounds romantic that the cottages will be “serviced by barge” this means that each lot must have some kind of “barge landing” either in the lucky form of some natural area that works, or a built structure strong enough to support heavy equipment as you can be assured of one thing, nobody nowadays likes to use a shovel and pick so there will be equipment on every lot. This will likely go on “forever” as renovations happen in the future. The bigger the cottage the bigger the service needs too don’t forget.
Like I say, I’ve watched this happen. Now there is virtually nowhere to go by boat for say a picnic. All the land is private and considering the exorbitant price they paid for it, the owners guard it jealously with signs that essentially say “I’ve got this piece… go away!” You can’t really blame them considering what they probably paid for the land.
Two notable exceptions are the Oxtongue river where the conservation people actually paid for the land and own it. The other is the Ross Boothby park where Ross left the land as a park when he died I think.
If you want to have Langmaids remain undeveloped this group needs to purchase it in a similar manner but that will take a lot of money now. This would be a not insurmountable issue if all the cottagers on the lake contributed perhaps but the organization would take longer than it will likely take to develop the island in the first place.
I am just as guilty of development. At one time my family owned nearly two miles of shoreline on the lake but now it is down to about 1200 feet and that is developed into a business to support us. The balance we sold off over the years as cottage lots. We had no choice as we simply could not afford to keep this land in it’s natural state due to taxes. We have kept several hundred acres of “inland” land and it is managed as a recreational forest but lake shore is not possible to accommodate into this type of program. The government is too addicted to the tax revenue to allow this.
I know several other large lot land owners and they are in the same position of having to break up and sell their land, with the one exception. This exception is for the ultra wealthy who have chosen to have a cottage on the lake. These few people actually have the funds to just buy and hold empty expensive land as they wish. Where and how they got their vast sums of money one can only guess and their wishes, desires and ultimate actions are unknown and they can come and go virtually instantly as ownership changes, just like Langmaids island was held, undeveloped for many years but now not so any more.
I am saddened by all this as the lake has changed over these years. It is not the way it used to be and in many ways the enjoyment of the lake has deteriorated. I’m afraid this will only continue as more boat use, “impersonal” water craft, inappropriate offshore racer style boats and such populate the lake on weekends and in summer. Can houseboats be far away? We have built free launch ramps so if you think about this why bother with a cottage and all the costs when one can just arrive at the ramp with a cabin cruiser, launch for free and “live on the lake” for a few days at any time. This will likely come one day as it has to places like Lake Simcoe.
The attributes that I loved about this lake are gradually being taken away, a bit at a time. If I was a lot younger, knowing what I know now, my first reaction would be to be heading somewhere else, other than this area of Ontario but when one thinks deeper one realizes that finding a better place is also difficult. This world is getting crowded and nice places are hard to find, especially if you would like them affordable.
Perhaps we need to work harder at preserving what we have here, starting with places like Langmaids?
The resources and cash are out there…..
Stuff to think about.
As Step 1 of this proposed development, shouldn’t there be an environmental assessment? A previous writer has suggested that the entire island has been designated a heritage area: surely a central park of appreciable size (containing old growth forest) could be stipulated to be a heritage/conservation area. As it is an island, I assume that there are no “provincially significant wetlands”; which would also have to be protected. Perhaps, the 15-m buffer zone around the entire shoreline could be transferred to the Township to further protect the water habitat/spawning grounds.
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If you then take the original 147 acres; deduct the above acreage; and divide by 5 (to represent a more appropriate estate lot); you would arrive at an approximation of a compromise solution.
The development plan for block”A” on S. Portsge Rd. appears to require numerous zoning variances from the Town of Huntsville.
This is not a Plan of a Subdivision, this is a plan of destruction of a pristine island on Lake of Bays. This island has never been logged and has Old Forest Growth over most of it. Access to each lot by a barge is another disaster waiting to happen. Huntsville has the ability to stop this or dramatically reduce it, let’s hope they listen to the people.
The Island is designated as Muskoka Heritage Area and zoned as WR (WaterFront Residential). The zoning treats the entire Island as a single Lot and grants the owner the right to build a single dwelling on the entire Island.
Section D.98 of The Township Of Lake Of Bays Official Plan also directly addresses Langmaid’s Island and DISCOURAGES the creation of new Lots.
A lot of effort has been put into preserving the Island in its existing state. Why are we so eager to change that to satisfy a developer?
Let’s hope Huntsville Council opinions (and ratepayer input) holds some sway with both the District and the Township of Lake of Bays. This island is a gem in its current state.