CAO making pitch to township
City CAO Allan Seabrooke to address Cavan Monaghan Township on April 18 on new land annexation deal payout terms
The City of Peterborough is expected to formally ask Cavan Monaghan Township for a new payment plan in a proposed land annexation deal, later this month.
City CAO Allan Seabrooke said he will be speaking before township council at their meeting in Millbrook on April 18 at 1 p.m.
Seabrooke said he will ask township council to consider amending the payment plan the city would follow in the deal.
The original plan called for the city to pay $2.5 million annually to the township for the next 25 years, in exchange for 4,140 acres of land.
But now city council wants to know whether it could pay less to the township upfront, and then increase its annual payments as houses and businesses are built on its new lands.
The payments for the township wouldn’t be less overall: Cavan Monaghan would still get the same amount over 25 years.
But the city wants to make larger payments in later years, when those payments are offset by an increased tax base.
The idea is to give the city room to grow: Peterborough is in dire need of both residential and industrial lands, and has been negotiating off and on with the township for years to get extra land.
City council voted at a meeting March 20 to ask the township if it would consider amending the payment plan.
Scott McFadden, mayor of Cavan Monaghan Township, did not want to comment on the matter Monday because he hadn’t yet seen the township staff report on the issue.
But he wrote a column in the Millbrook Times on March 30 saying the township is unwilling to change anything in the prospective deal.
In his column, McFadden points out that the township, city and county of Peterborough all had staff negotiate until they came to an agreement called a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
That’s supposed to be the framework for a more-detailed land annexation deal, McFadden writes - and there’s no changing it now.
“The Township of Cavan Monaghan has clearly stated to the City of Peterborough that we’re finished negotiating the MOU,” he writes.
“Until such time that the City of Peterborough accepts the MOU dated Dec. 7, 2016, the process stops.”