Severn Township residents are upset with developers removing trees near an environmental protection area adjacent to a 173-home subdivision development, but mayor Mike Burkett said they were within their rights to do so.
Located off Turnbull Drive in Cumberland Beach, the LIV Communities and Bosseini Living development lands sit next to an environmental protection area that extends out toward Grayshott Drive and Lake Couchiching.
Although developers are not permitted to build homes within the environmental protection area, in recent weeks a number of trees were cleared to build a boardwalk from the development to the lake — raising concern among residents and local officials.
“It started the last couple of weeks — they began clearing through the EP area,” said township resident Matt Thomson. “What we have now is not a boardwalk, it's a roadway.”
Once the pathway was cleared, Thomson said developers began filling the area with large rocks.
“They brought in all the excess … material that they had,” he said. “They basically trucked that around to the EP (environmental protection) side, and they pounded in all this big rock and boulders, and they're obstructing the functionality of what that EP zone was designed to do.”
Burkett told OrilliaMatters the developers did not inform township officials of their plans to clear the pathway, which raised some confusion and concern among residents and officials,
“They're going to build a boardwalk, a walkway to the lake — they can't build anything on the property — but to do that they took out trees, and now it's caused an uproar in the community, and rightfully so. They should have reached out, and our staff had no idea.”
However, Burkett said the developer’s actions fall within their right to clear a pathway, which was part of an environmental assessment study, among many other studies, completed in advance of the subdivision.
“It's all documented at the township office. Anyone can come and have a look at it,” he said. “They’re within their (rights). They can't build anything down there, but what they are building is a walkway to the water for the new homes that are going in.”
The mayor said he has no concern about the actions developers have taken in the area, except for the fact the township was not notified.
“They don't have to notify, but to work with us because they know it's a contentious area, it would have been nice that they reached out to staff to at least let us know … so that we had an answer for (people),” Burkett said. “When people walk that road … they'd be upset because in their mind they would have thought that they did something illegal.”
Thomson, however, still has concerns about the move, arguing there could be drainage issues within the environmental protection area due to how the path is constructed.
“It's just kind of blocked off on both sides of it. We haven't seen the rainfall yet, but where's all that water goint to go?” he asmed. “It wasn't laid out as a boardwalk.”
To clearcut the land for the subdivision, Thomson said developers would have needed a permit from the County of Simcoe, but he is unaware of any permit to cut the path through the environmental protection area.
“I see it all the time, where you get a developer or builder … clear cut a lot with no intention of getting a permit,” he said.