COUNTY OF FRONTENAC JUNE 2019 COMMUNAL SERVICES STUDY 2611 QUEENSVIEW DRIVE SUITE 300 OTTAWA, ON K2B 8K2 T: 613.829.2800 COUNTY OF FRONTENAC JUNE 2019 COMMUNAL SERVICES STUDY PREPARED FOR: COUNTY OF FRONTENAC JOE GALLIVAN PREPARED BY: DIRECTOR OF PLANNING AND ECONOMIC WSP DEVELOPMENT 2611 Queensview Drive, Suite 300 2069 Battersea Road Ottawa, ON K2B 8K2 Glenburnie, ON K0H 1S0 T: 613.690.1114 T: 613.548.9400 x350 E: [email protected] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The County of Frontenac extends their appreciation to the members of the Technical Advisory Committee listed below for their support, time, and expertise in the preparation of this Study. Their passion and stewardship of the Study will be instrumental in driving change, while building great communities in the County and in the Townships. Members of the Technical Advisory Committee: Susan Brant, County of Frontenac Claire Dodds, Township of South Frontenac Mike Elms, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Katrina Furlanetto, Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority Joe Gallivan, County of Frontenac Jim McIntosh, Planning Advisory Committee Member, County of Frontenac Gord Mitchell, Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Health Unit Trish Johnson, Environmental Consultant Jon Orpana, Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks Kelly Pender, County of Frontenac Megan Rueckwald, County of Frontenac Mark Segsworth, Township of South Frontenac COUNTY OF FRONTENAC WSP COMMUNAL SERVICES STUDY June 2019 TABLE OF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................... IV CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................. 1 1.1 The Servicing Problem ................................................ 3 1.2 What are Communal Services? ................................... 4 1.3 Why are Communal Services the Right Fit for the County of Frontenac? .................................................. 6 1.4 Study Purpose ........................................................... 12 2 COMMUNITY OVERVIEW ................................. 12 2.1 Demographic Trends ................................................. 12 2.2 Land Use ................................................................... 14 2.3 Historic Villages and Mainstreets ............................... 17 2.4 Housing ..................................................................... 18 2.5 Environment and Natural Heritage ............................. 19 2.6 Climate Change and Risk .......................................... 20 3 REGULATORY FRAMEWORK ......................... 21 3.1 Legislative and Regulatory Implications for Communal Servicing ................................................................... 24 4 EXISTING LOCAL PLANNING CONTEXT ....... 25 4.1 The Role of Conservation Authorities ........................ 25 4.2 Official Plan Review ................................................... 26 4.3 Summary ................................................................... 31 COUNTY OF FRONTENAC WSP COMMUNAL SERVICES STUDY June 2019 Page i 5 COMMUNAL SERVICES BEST PRACTICES ... 32 6 ENGINEERING BEST PRACTICES .................. 35 7 FINANCIAL MODEL AND RISK MITIGATION .. 35 7.1 Assumptions .............................................................. 36 7.2 Methodology .............................................................. 37 8 CONCLUSION ................................................... 43 TABLES Table 7-1: Financial Model User Inputs Required ................. 38 Table 7-2: Example Communal System Catastrophic Failure Likelihood and Risk Tolerance ............................................. 40 FIGURES Figure 1-1: County of Frontenac Key Map .............................. 2 Figure 1-2: Different types of servicing systems ..................... 5 Figure 1-3: Subdivision Development Potential on Individual Servicing .................................................................... 10 Figure 1-4: Subdivision Development Potential on Communal Servicing .................................................................... 11 Figure 2-1: Allocation of Permanent Population Growth in the County of Frontenac by Municipality, 2011-2036 .................. 13 Figure 2-2: Settlement Areas in the County of Frontenac ..... 15 Figure 2-3: Approximate boundaries for Snow Road Station Settlement Area in North Frontenac (left) and Sydenham Settlement Area in South Frontenac (right) .......................... 16 Figure 2-4: Verona Mainstreet, circa 1930 (Jeff Green, Frontenac News, 2015) ........................................................ 17 Figure 2-5: County of Frontenac Crown Land, Figure #2 Crown Land, County of Frontenac Official Plan, 2016 .......... 19 Figure 2-6: Big Salmon Lake in Frontenac Provincial Park (CC 2.0 Ted Goldring, 2006) ....................................................... 20 Figure 3-1: Regulatory approvals process for a hypothetical communal wastewater system ............................................. 23 WSP COUNTY OF FRONTENAC June 2019 COMMUNAL SERVICES STUDY Page ii Figure 4-1: Key Map of Conservation Authorities within County of Frontenac............................................................. 25 Figure 5-1: Example of emerging wastewater treatment technologies, PhytoLinksTM Modular Floating Treatment Wetland System for stormwater and wastewater applications (TerrapinWater) .................................................................... 34 Figure 7-1: Logarithmic vs. Linear Scale .............................. 39 APPENDICES A Federal and Provincial Regulatory Framework B County and Townships Planning Context C Draft Official Plan Policies D Engineering Best Practices E Engineering Best Practices - Attachments F Financial Model Sample Outputs COUNTY OF FRONTENAC WSP COMMUNAL SERVICES STUDY June 2019 Page iii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The County of Frontenac’s permanent and seasonal populations are projected to grow over the next 20 years. With population growth comes development pressures and the need to consider where and how development can be accommodated and serviced, while maintaining and enhancing the vitality and livability of the County’s villages and hamlets as rural community hubs with a distinct sense of place. Existing approaches to water and wastewater servicing constrain the County’s potential for growth. The cost of providing or expanding municipal water and wastewater services to all rural areas is not a fiscal reality for most municipalities. Development on private individual on-site services inherently results in lower forms of density, due to the spatial requirements associated with well and septic treatment systems, and associated separation distances. Continued development in the County on private services has the potential to result in inefficient use of land, and threaten the long-term viability of the County’s villages and hamlets, especially their mainstreets. Without innovative approaches to servicing, the County and developers are limited in their ability to respond to community needs in the provision of diverse housing types along the housing spectrum to enable residents to age in place. Development on smaller lot sizes could assist in addressing increasing concerns related to rural housing affordability and accessibility. Private servicing also limits the revitalization of village and hamlet mainstreets and commercial cores to be vibrant, walkable, and compact, and able to accommodate new commercial and mixed-use development. Communal services are systems that provide water and wastewater treatment to clusters of residences or businesses. They can be a less expensive alternative to centralized municipal services and a more environmentally-friendly alternative to private on-site services. However, perceived obstacles have slowed the implementation of communal services in many jurisdictions. A key benefit of communal services is that they represent alternative water and wastewater servicing approaches that can provide the County and Townships with the innovative technology and flexibility to accommodate growth and achieve planning, environmental, and economic development objectives. The fundamental purpose of this Communal Servicing Study (“the Study”) is to demonstrate that the perceived obstacles are just that, and to equip the County of Frontenac with the planning, engineering, and economic development tools necessary to enable redevelopment and new development on the basis of communal services. Communal water and wastewater servicing offers the potential to enable new development and infill across the County, including on village and hamlet mainstreets, addressing some of the challenges associated with centralized municipal services and with private on-site services. Most importantly, communal servicing has the potential to support more compact, land-efficient development than is possible with private WSP COUNTY OF FRONTENAC June 2019 COMMUNAL SERVICES STUDY Page iv servicing, at a lower cost than is possible with centralized municipal services, and enable revitalization of the County’s communities. The type of communal services treatment and disposal system that is chosen to service a development depends on many factors, including site soil characteristics, the presence of surface water features close to the site, design sewage flows, raw sewage strength, and effluent requirements. This Study includes Engineering Best Practices that provide a guideline for the planning, selection, and design of a communal on-site sewage treatment and disposal system, as well as best practices for installation, operation,