By Cecilia Nasmith/Northumberland 89.7 FM/Today’s Northumberland
Cobourg council has decided to sell the land it purchased from the Kawartha Pine Ridge Board of Education on the Lake Ontario shoreline.
At their December meeting, Councillor Miriam Mutton’s motion to request staff to include a protocol and schedule for public engagement on how the land might be used was defeated, after a recorded vote resulted in a tie.
The report from Director of Legislative Services Brent Larmer and Director of Planning and Devleopment Cristal Laanstra gave some history of the 4.57-acre lot that had been the athletic field for CDCI West, several blocks to the north, until the board closed the school almost a decade ago. The town purchased it in December 2022 and, the following April, council directed it be used for “a balanced mix of parkland, market and affordable residential units.”
The town issued an RFP for proposals for this project. The hope was to recoup costs from the purchase and ameliorate the town’s housing crisis while maintaining the waterfront, boardwalk and open space for the public. They got submissions from two developers plus Williams Academy (which had purchased CDCI West and wanted the lot for recreation purposes). None of the submissions was considered satisfactory
“Typically, waterfront and waterview property skews to higher property values and would not be an ideal candidate for the creation of affordable housing,” the report concluded.
The idea is to sever boardwalks and parkland areas, and sell the remainder. This was a $2-million purchase, on which the town is still paying financing costs, and such a sale is the opportunity to recoup the costs and collect property taxes down the line.
Mutton declared it had been “a brilliant move by the previous council to obtain these lands.
“The notice of sale actually happened after the previous council, so it was in the lame duck period, so they delegated authority to the CAO to purchase And there wasn’t public engagement.”
Councillor Adam Bureau, who was on council at the time, said the two big aims were to secure the waterfront and to have the deal be cost-neutral for the taxpayers.
“That was the most important part, and sell of the rest so it wouldn’t be a burden to the taxpayer. It was never intended for the Town of Cobourg to use it in any way, shape or form. The whole basis of this is make it less on the taxpayer and secure the waterfront,” Bureau reiterated.
He said the exercise Mutton was proposing would be like the consultations the town mounted after the Brookside Youth Centre was vacated. Before it became obvious that the facility would not be obtained by the town, there were visioning sessions on all the uses to which the property could be put – museums, housing, art displays.
“All that which we don’t have money for,” Bureau summed up.
“There are options to finance that could be almost cost-neutral,” Mutton persisted.
Mayor Lucas Cleveland agreed it would be lovely to go down a path of what might be done with this beautiful piece of land. But he had just sat through both Northumberland County and Town of Cobourg council meetings that came up with 2025 budgets after fighting at length to find economies to keep the levy increases affordable.
“The reality is, we need to be doing less more effectively, more efficiently, not what can we potentially do with this or that,” the mayor said.
“I want the money, I want the money in our bank, and I want to move forward.”
Mutton cited the town’s Parks Master Plan, and declared, “We are underparked.”
In the end, she was joined by Deputy Mayor Nicole Beatty and Councillor Aaron Burchat in voting for a consultation process to help determine the land’s use. But the votes against it from the mayor, Bureau and Councillor Randy Barber made it a tie – in which case the motion was defeated.
The original motion calls for declaring the lands surplus and directing staff on next steps, including preparing the land to be placed on the open market, eliminating the requirement for affordable units (though encouraging such a use) and “relying on the development planning process to guide any developer on the development of the lands.”
The boardwalk and waterfront lands that will remain in parkland will be severed, with the town retaining ownership of “the undevelopable lands” prior to final advertisement and sale.
Thereafter, zoning will be initiated as determined by council with advice and recommendation from the Director of Planning and Development. A new appraisal of the lands will be obtained based on the rezoning and severance, and the property will go to market “as a newly formed parcel ready for residential development.” The town will work with a professional realtor on conditions created as part of the final purchase and sale agreement, including that development applications and permits must be applied for within a maximum of two to three years after purchase
