Negotiations continue between the Town of Huntsville and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) to transfer ownership of a portion of Shay Road.
Brandon Hall, Acting Director of Operations for the Town of Huntsville, appeared before Huntsville Council on July 28, seeking permission to enter into an interim maintenance agreement with the MTO to assume maintenance responsibilities for the northern portion of Shay Road, while temporarily closing access to the southern portion (about 100 metres) of the road.
The municipality recently discovered that about one kilometre of Shay Road, from the eastern limit of the newly constructed Shay Rd extension to West Rd, is owned by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO). According to Hall, that portion is “characterized by inconsistent conditions – ranging from generally acceptable in the north (approx. 300 meters) to severely deteriorated in the southern segment.”
The interim measure proposed by Hall would enable the municipality to negotiate the future transfer of ownership of that portion of the road, while providing the required two access points for emergency services and traffic flow to the new Fairvern Long-Term Care Home and the Eagle Ridge subdivision development, expected to consist of up to 600 residential units.
Prompted by a question from Coucillor Helena Renwick regarding the time it might take to transfer and reopen that portion of the road, Hall said there is no definitive timeline. He said the municipality has been working on it for the past five months.
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Maybe this is the time to call Graydon Smith. The road is owned by tax payers, no the MTO, and it appears to serve no purpose except for the town to have legal access to other town roads. This should be a no brainer but it will probably end up costing the town money to buy land that tax payers already own. Are we over governed?
Well the map is a bit lacking here. What does orange and blue mean? Like who owns what on this map?
Which way is north? It is not indicated so do we guess?
It is hard to conceive of spending 5 month negotiating this road ownership with MTO and not having some conclusion. Personally I can’t imagine a single reason why MTO would not be more than glad to have someone else look after this road. If they want the land as part of highway 60’s future, just take it and let the town reconstruct Shay a bit off to one side. They are going to have to totally reconstruct it anyway so moving it a bit to make MTO happy would not be a big deal except, wait a minute…… maybe it would take up some land earmarked for housing? Land that appears at first glance to be either swamp or rock outcropping but hey!, what is a few more tons of dynamite to a job like this one.
This whole area, much like some other municipal ownership issues (train station maybe?) is getting sort of crazy.