‘Shades of grey’: City seeks legal viewpoint on non-public roadways

If your household is on a personal highway and something goes awry, can the town support you?

Collingwood council is hoping to obtain out.

Through the July 10 council conference, Mayor Yvonne Hamlin put forward a motion for the town to seek a authorized view regarding the guidelines of private roads, to tell no matter if the city has the authority to address issues as they occur on this kind of roadways in Collingwood.

“We have so several individuals now getting condominiums in our neighborhood. As they go in, they are recognizing the obligations, which we could assist make improved for them, like snow storage places or broader roads so that the County (of Simcoe) could collect rubbish,” claimed Hamlin. “There’s a complete variety of things that we could assistance our residents with.”

“So just before we commence debating at this desk changes to the Formal Prepare or probably engineering standards, employees has prompt it would be prudent to get a legal belief as to our authority to do so,” she reported.

Coun. Kathy Jeffery questioned about prices of the motion.

“What’s the expense, and what bucket is it coming out of?” asked Jeffery.

The town’s chief administrative officer, Sonya Skinner, said employees had not considered fees as the movement experienced not but been passed, having said that she believed it would get about two hours of legal time.

“Not a significant price. I imagine it would be workable in our normal authorized spending budget for planning matters,” stated Skinner.

Coun. Christopher Baines requested if they could attract on the activities of other municipalities.

“Has no other municipality in Ontario asked the exact concern of their staff members and of their legal representatives and could they share that with us?” asked Baines.

Director of organizing, building and economic enhancement Summer Valentine reported the challenge is not reduce and dry.

“The issue of condominiums is that they’re tenure and not land-use. They stroll a gray area below the Organizing Act,” she claimed. “I’ve observed lots of various municipal methods in conditions of regulation.”

“I envision that’s mainly because the lawful tips isn’t black and white and there are really a handful of shades of gray there,” she reported, warning that a jurisdictional scan would have to have a whole lot of employees sources to full.

Coun. Deb Doherty said she had been given an inquiry that day from a resident of a condominium corporation on a subject of personal streets, more than which the town has no management.

“It hammers dwelling to me how critical it is for us to have an reply to this dilemma,” she mentioned.

Jeffery stated requesting a authorized viewpoint gave her pause.

“You can retain asking for lawful opinions and keep getting different ones until eventually you get the reply you want,” she said. “I just would hope that our director of arranging is self-assured that it would give us some structure and a thing to rely on other than the grey spot that is been referred to mainly because or else, we are just hoping to nail Jell-O to a tree.”

At the conclude of dialogue, council voted unanimously in favour of the motion.