The Blue Mountains council has approved a plan to continue negotiations to acquire approximately 90 acres of property next to the Tomahawk recreational complex.
At its meeting on June 19, council approved a report from the 10th Line Working Group that recommended the town continue discussions with Tom and Ruth Kritsch and their representatives about an offer by the Kritsch family to donate 50 acres of the property to the town. The Kritsch family has also offered the town the chance to purchase the remaining 39 acres of the land.
The working group was formed to review the land donation offer from the Kritsch family and recently held two meetings.
“We have some ideas for what we’d like to see over there. It was a favourable meeting and got a lot accomplished,” said working group chair and councillor Gail Ardiel.
Council unanimously approved a resolution to authorize continued negotiations with the Kritsch family and for the town to collaborate with Grey County, the provincial government and various community organizations about the best use for the property should the town acquire the lands.
CAO Shawn Everitt said the next step in the process would be “a place-setting exercise” to get an idea of what might be achievable on the lands.
“We can get a vision of what can actually be on the property,” said Everitt.
The property adjacent to the municipal golf course is zoned specialty agriculture, which does place limitations on potential uses.
Possible uses with that zoning include: all types of agricultural uses and related buildings and structures, a farm residence, accessory residential uses on farm properties, market gardening and nurseries, farm-related uses such as home/rural occupations, bed-and-breakfast establishments. retail sales of farm produce accessory to an agricultural use, forestry and reforestation, small-scale industrial or commercial, passive recreational uses, such as walking trails and nature interpretation centres on lands owned by a public authority, an estate or farm winery, agri-tourism uses, sand and/or gravel operations on lands identified as aggregate resource areas, licensed aggregate operations on lands identified as mineral resource extraction, wayside pits and quarries and portable asphalt plants for road works in the area, but shall not include the stockpiling of sand-salt mixtures.
The CAO also said a future report would come forward from staff that would detail what will need to be done and how much it will cost should the land donation/purchase continue.
“There is a considerable amount of work that needs to take place,” he said.
The CAO also suggested the town may want to consider establishing a formal task force to move the project forward in the near future.
The Kritsch family has also offered to donate more property to the town on Arthur Taylor Lane near Clarksburg. A working group formed to look at that potential donation has not yet met.
