Council's Questionable Land Acquisition in Sunset Beach

We wonder if the hundreds of permanent and seasonal home, cottage and property owners in the Sunset Beach community in the northern most area of Tiny Township will see the actions of the Council with the same praise or enthusiasm evident in the recent announcement in the Midland Today article (March 7, 2025).

Of course they know what the Township announcement and the Midland Today article fails to disclose: that Tiny Township already owns hundreds of metres of shoreline and dozens of acres of open space lands in the five publicly owned blocks of land separating the six crescents forming the original design of the community. This is not counting two substantial blocks of land originally dedicated as Parkland. We, through one of our companies, have owned a number of properties in the Sunset Beach community and, given our backgrounds in municipal and regional land use planning and land development over the last twenty plus years in Tiny, have acquires some knowledge of the legal and historical background of the area. As with a number of other waterfront communities in Tiny, the waterfront blocks separating the crescents were originally set aside as private open space with owners of all the lots have in their deeds of ownership “TOGETHER WITH AND EASEMENT, a right, licence or right in the nature or an easement in perpetuity (emphasis ours) in favour of the Grantee (lot owner), its successors and assigns of any of the lots described aforesaid , their occupants and invitees to have access to and enjoy the use of these lands being in the Township of Tiny. In simple terms, these blocks of land, including hundreds of metres of shoreline were owned originally by the developer, which included the now deceased Mr. Axler, but were set aside forever for the use of residents of the community and their friends.

While in other similar developments, ownership of these lands generally passed off eventually from the developer to an organized and legal community association, this did not occur in Sunset Beach. Therefore, from the original development of the plans in the late 1950's and the early 1960's, the developers, including Mr. Axler, were obligated to pay taxes on these blocks until at a time when, either through non-payment of taxes or voluntary transfer, the Township became the owners of five of the seven blocks, including those hundreds of metres of shoreline. Notably, these blocks were still legally encumbered with the deed rights of the lot owners, but now as public lands were also open to the wider public. Also notably, what occurred did not include two the seven blocks located at each end of the community, including Block C involved in the current transaction. The other Block, located at the Kettles Beach end of the development was sold and then resold to the owners and residents of an adjacent lot who contrary to the rights of the other lots owners attempted to restrict access to the Block and its beach. We have personal knowledge of this as our company owned a lot backing onto this Block, which we subsequently donated to Hospice Huronia to be used as a fundraiser.

This brings us back to Block C being donated to the Township by the Axler family in consideration for a tax receipt for $538,000.00 In 2017, through another of our companies, to protect a 50+ acre environmentally sensitive piece of land straddling the Trans Canada Trail in the Copeland Creek Valley, then being offered for sale for development, we purchase the land and donated it to the Township. The Council, at that time, had a strict procedure involving an independent appraisal by a qualified licenced professional to establish the fair market value for the tax receipt that would ultimately be submitted to the Canada Revenue Agency. We wonder if this same process was followed in the case of Block C and if it was, was the appraiser aware that Block C is zoned OS1 Open Space (Private Lands) with the only permitted uses being conservation use and nature interpretation centre. Also Block C was subject to the previously mentioned, legally registered restriction on title, granting rights to other property owners for the use and enjoyment of the property in perpetuity. This condition, in our opinion, effectively makes this property unsaleable except to a collective group of the community or the Township. If a proper and informed procedure was not followed, we are sure this would be of concern to the Canada Revenue Agency, as it should be to any taxpaying citizen.

With respect to Block B, the 5.665 acres being purchase for 4.5 million dollars, we, as land use planners who have worked in and for municipalities in cottage country and have consulted and developed and owned property in a number of cottage country municipalities, this price for this property makes absolutely no sense. If, as stated, the intent is to divide off the waterfront, even if only a shoreline strip,it would mean that the remaining property, given its Shoreline Residential (SR) zoning, and the minimum lot area requirement of 4,000 square metres (just under 1 acre) would at most yield 5 lots. To recover 4.5 million from the sale of 5 lots would mean each lot would have to sell for at least $900,000.00 and would be separated from the water by the proposed public strip of land. Having dealt with properties throughout this area and along Champlain Road leading to this area, we are not aware of any sales even remotely approaching these figures. Of course that does not include any cost involved in borrowing to finance the purchase, creating and then selling the lots.

CAO Robert Lamb is quoted correctly as stating the Axler family has had the property on the market multiple times over the years and the above facts are obvious reasons why it never sold. We were approached, and from time to time, received calls from other developers or development lawyers we have been involved with from previous development projects with regard to these lands. They generally were unaware that this was a fairly remote, rural property and, contrary to what was being promoted. had no usual municipal services, particularly sewer and water, therefore, limiting its development potential to at most probably five lots.

Mr. Lamb is also quoted as saying that “other developers could have paid a lot more for it”, but also as stated by Mr. Lamb, although it has been on the market many times over many years, no developer has shown any interest. As developers active in Tiny Township over the last several decades, the reason is obvious: the property was not remotely worth what they were asking and, in our experience for the reasons mentioned above, is not remotely worth what the Town has agreed to pay for it.

We would hope that, recognizing their fiduciary duty to the taxpayers of the Township, the Council consulted qualified professionals including an appraiser or appraisers to establish and support the price being paid. We look forward with anticipation to that information becoming available so we may understand how or why our opinions are so wrong.

However, from individuals who have reached out to us with Facebook posts copied to us by email as we are not Facebook users, the motive for this appears to be to satisfy the beach rights advocates who were instrumental in recruiting and electing most of the current Council. Also as we are now well into the last half of their term, this is probably intended to address, although badly, their stated mandate regarding public beach acquisition and access.

In any case, in real terms, it is hard to rationalize how over-paying for a property, as far as possible but still in the township, from the areas experiencing pressure for greater access to beaches and where already there are dozens of acres and hundreds of metres of underutilized and undeveloped public land, makes any kind of sense except for public political statement purposes.

As with other endeavours by this Council, we suspect that this will end badly for Tiny ratepayers