Township of Lake of Bays implemented a requirement for property owners to enter into an expensive road licence agreement. Is this right? Bob Aaron thinks not.
Access to Lake of Bays may cost cottagers more if the Township has its way. But Bob Aaron thinks you should only pay if you are looking to improve the roadway in.
Residents and cottagers in Lake of Bays township are unhappy with a new municipal requirement to sign an expensive road licence agreement to access their properties.
The township’s requirement is based on what I believe is a misinterpretation of a May 27, 2024 opinion from their legal counsel regarding the use of unassumed road allowances by members of the public.
Unassumed or unopened road allowances are common throughout the Township of Lake of Bays in and around Huntsville.
These allowances can be a road, street, lane, or even a dirt track, which has not been formally dedicated for public use by the municipality. They may be created by a private owner, or by registration of a plan of subdivision showing roadways or lanes, or by an original crown survey showing roadways.
By statute, municipal councils have jurisdiction over unopened or unassumed roadways even though the public has access to them.
Relying on the letter from the township solicitor John Ewart, the Township of Lake of Bays has implemented a requirement for property owners to enter into an expensive road licence agreement.
He noted that members of the public do not require municipal consent merely to travel over unopened roads. Ewart’s letter correctly says the public requires permission if they want to make improvements to the road. But the township mistakenly mandates agreements whether owners want to make improvements to the road or not. That is wrong.
Dozens of local residents who use what are often dirt tracks to get to their cottages have been getting letters from the township requiring them to pay an application fee of $300 or $600 (depending on the length of the road) and an annual fee of $250. They also have to obtain a land survey which could cost thousands of dollars, and obtain liability insurance for a staggering $5 million.
Owners who fail to comply with these requirements will, as a last resort, have vehicular access to their properties restricted. Users have to maintain the roads in a safe condition at their own expense.
In my view, and apparently in the opinion of the township’s solicitor, road licence agreements may only be required if users want to make improvements to the road. I see nothing on the township’s website or in its bylaws which entitles the township to require owners to enter into an agreement if they merely want to use and not improve the roadways.
In an angry online post at doppleronline.ca, local resident Bri Lavoie complained that local residents would now have to pay thousands of dollars to survey, upgrade, insure and use a single track dirt road with fewer than 50 vehicles a day traffic.
Another post by Andrew Mullins called it a cash grab.
Lake of Bays mayor Mayor Terry Glover is quoted as saying that without road licence agreements, the issue of liability could “sink a township pretty quickly.”
I thought that was the purpose of municipal liability insurance.
I see a lawsuit on the horizon.