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Mono gives land use to trail group, draws resident’s ire

October 24, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

The Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club has a plan that will make the wilderness route avoid Second Line in Mono.

Town council heard during its Oct. 22 meeting that the Bruce Trail Conservancy acquired a pair of small seven-acre properties that front onto Hockley Road and with the Nottawasaga River coursing through them.

That was before the conservancy bought the former Goodyear Memorial Scout Camp in 2023. That’s almost 240 acres that extends from 5 Sideroad to Hockley Road and from First Line to Second Line.

Those properties create the opportunity for the club to preserve land west from Second Line north to Hockley Road.

The plan’s next step is to extend north and east from Hockley Road back into Hockley Valley Provincial Nature Reserve.

The club has shown that it is adept at maintaining the trail.

The club is an entity that’s far from a hiking organization, said Sandy Green, the club’s president.

It is a group of more than 1,100 members and that includes a workforce of more than 200 volunteers. That workforce maintains “to worldclass standards” about 72 kilometres of the Bruce Trail that reaches from the Cheltenham Badlands to Mono Centre, Green said.

“We are truly grateful to the generous landowners who kindly and generously share their properties,” she said. “We are committed to building an inclusive, diverse, and welcoming community that celebrates and protects the Niagara Escarpment.”

She said the club works to restore ecosystems to optimum ecological health.

“That is the forefront of our mission,” she said, and added that there’s a passion to preserve a ribbon of wilderness for everyone forever.

As much as 72 per cent of the 900-kilometre trail is secure on the optimum route.

Dave Moule, the club’s trail development coordinator, said the club has aspirations of a permanently protected natural corridor along the Niagara Escarpment with a trail through it.

“One of the things that doesn’t belong in that natural corridor is a trail section along a travelled road,” he said.

There are only three road sections remaining on the trail in the south half of Mono. And those sections are about one kilometre long.

“All the rest of it (the trail) is basically on the optimum route in the ribbon of wilderness,” Moule said.

One of the properties the club needs to fulfill its plans is owned by the Town of Mono. Another is privately owned by an Ottawa resident who hasn’t seen the parcel of land in about 25 years.

“We contacted that person and he gave us a handshake agreement,” Moule said. “He gave us permission to put trail on the property.”

Those properties, along with a third that’s in the works, will allow the club to improve the trail. It will take about 60 metres of the Bruce Trail off Hockley Road and provide other benefits that will serve the hiking experience, he said.

Moule and Green asked for the municipality’s permission to use its parcel of land to build part of the trail. Over the longer term, Moule asked to investigate if the property is needed by the town. If it’s deemed to be surplus land, the conservancy would be interested in buying it, he said.

During previous council meetings, Deputy Mayor Fred Nix would recuse himself from discussions regarding the Bruce Trail to avoid any conflicts of interest from his involvement years ago.

“Ordinarily when the Bruce Trail is here I declare a conflict of interest,” Nix said.

But in conversations with Mike Dunmore, the town’s CAO, and Fred Simpson, the town’s clerk, Nix said he was told he wouldn’t be in a conflict for taking in the club’s presentation to council.

“So I’ll be staying for the presentation,” Nix said.

Elaine Kehoe, a Mono resident, took issue following the meeting with how Nix would recuse himself from past issues relating to the Bruce Trail for fear of a possible conflict of interest. But then he proposed during the Oct. 22 meeting a motion “that allowed a handshake deal with Caledon hikers” and it was passed.

“If he had to excuse himself [from] every meeting when the Bruce Trail came up because of a conflict of interest, how can he present a motion that was passed?” she said.

Back at the council meeting, Councillor Elaine Capes wondered how the property in question was being currently used.

Dunmore said that piece of the town is a vacant woodlot that was received through tax arrears.

“So it’s just sitting there as a lovely forest waiting for people to come and see it,” Capes said.

“It’s one of a number of properties scattered throughout the town as public open space,” Moule said, and added that it’s about two acres with just 110 feet of frontage on Hockley Road. The frontage has a thick stand of cedar trees.

“It doesn’t invite entry and there’s nothing to indicate that it’s public land,” Moule said.

“Well I am all for keeping people from walking on our roads,” Capes said. “Keeping people safe is, I think, a priority.”

Coun. Melinda Davie said council should take some time to see if the land can be utilized in other ways.

“There’s an ability there for the town that I think we need to be very careful and take time,” Davie said.

Nix put forward the motion that the town allow the club to build a trail on the land in question by way of “basically a handshake.”

Capes said there are many Mono landowners who allow the Bruce Trail Conservancy to use their properties.

“Many, many, many people and a lot of them are my friends and I know that they do this,” Capes said. “And they trust the Bruce Trail to let them use their private properties for hiking trail. This is two kilometres we’re asking about. I don’t see why this is a huge ask.”

The motion to allow for use of the municipal property was carried.

“Let’s try and keep this agreement as simple as possible,” Mayor John Creelman said. “I don’t think that it is impacting the future of the property one way or the other. Again, it is not taking the next possible step of declaring it surplus.”

And then later: “There’s not going to be a trail there tomorrow,” Nix said. “Before the Bruce Trail can connect to this property, there’s two narrow properties that go up to the Hockley Road. They’ve got to build a bridge with a span of approximately 50 feet over the Nottawasaga River.”

“And you’re going to have to get a permit for that, too,” Creelman said. “And that could take a long, long time.”

Nix said the bridge construction “is a massive undertaking” that could take “some years” to complete.

“So have we now hog-tied ourselves because we have had a handshake agreement?” Davie said. She added that council did not even know the town owned the property in question.

“What we’re asking for here is not extraordinary,” Moule said, and added that there are parts of the Bruce Trail on “numerous” land parcels on open road allowances owned by Mono with the municipality’s permission.

“The word agreement was tossed around, but not in the motion,” Dunmore said. “Staff would feel more comfortable if we can formalize this discussion.”

After more discussion, Kehoe voiced a beef with Nix having not recused himself from the discussion.

“I fail to understand how Fred could bring forth a motion regarding the Bruce Trail when he has stepped away from every meeting that we’ve ever had regarding the Bruce Trail,” Kehoe said.

She said Nix was in a conflict of interest.

“Well, it’s not up to members of council to advise other members of council whether they have a conflict or not,” Creelman said. “It’s up to individual members of council to make that determination.”

“I’m just doing what I was told I can do,” Nix said.

“But you changed it while we were halfway through,” Davie said.

“As I say, we cannot be the judge of others on conflict of interest matters,” Creelman said.

“If that’s a problem, I will move the motion,” Capes said.

“It’s passed for the time being,” Creelman said.

And there you have it.

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