City, township annexation talks make some progress

A land annexation deal between the city and Cavan Monaghan Township isn’t expected until 2019, says the city’s CAO, even though negotiations have resumed behind the scenes.

Last year a prospective deal to annex much-needed industrial and residential land for the city from Cavan Monaghan reached a stalemate. But now steps are being taken toward a deal.

Allan Seabrooke, the city CAO, said talks between the city, township and county resumed with provincial facilitator Paula Dill for a full day in November.

This time there were elected officials at the table in addition to staff: Coun. Dan McWilliams, County Warden Joe Taylor and Cavan Monaghan Mayor Scott McFadden were all present.

Seabrooke said talks are expected to continue this year, but he doesn’t expect a deal signed until 2019.

“We had a good meeting and agreed that we would continue to work together in 2018,” Seabrooke wrote in a note to The Examiner.

The potential for an annexation deal was just within reach in 2017, but an impasse was reached.

In March, city and township officials arrived at a prospective deal that would have allowed 4,140 acres of land from the township to be absorbed by the city.

Under the deal the city would have had to pay the township $2.5 million annually for the next 25 years to annex the lands southwest of city limits.

But when city council wanted to be able to pay less upfront while gradually increasing payments, township council said it didn’t want to renegotiate.

Township Mayor Scott McFadden said at the time that was because his council wanted the city to receive the basic framework for the deal (called a memorandum of understanding, or MOU).

Next it wanted the city to hold a public meeting with citizens to receive feedback and then negotiate the fine details of the deal (including the pay schedule).

But that didn’t happen: instead city council instead asked the province to decide where the border should be and how much the city should pay.

Both township and county councils then asked the provincial government’s help to settle the matter.

The province responded by sending facilitator Paula Dill for a day in November. Dill had helped township, county and city officials develop the original MOU (with no elected officials present).

Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister and Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal wasn’t there, but he heard later from Municipal Affairs Minister Bill Mauro that strides were made.

“I was told it was a productive meeting,” Leal said.

Mayor Daryl Bennett said he wasn’t there and didn’t have any information about the outcome.

McFadden wasn’t available for comment on Wednesday.

But McWilliams said there had been “wholesome discussion” at the meeting, adding that Dill is a skilled negotiator who got all parties talking frankly.

“That wasn’t happening before,” he said. McWilliams said he’d be surprised if a deal doesn’t come together sooner than 2019, based on how smooth negotiations went on that day in November.

“But it’s got to be a wise decision – reasonable and fair to all parties,” he said.

Taylor said the negotiations were confidential, so he couldn’t divulge details.

But he did say the face-to-face discussions on that day in November helped clear up misunderstandings and that it helped to have elected officials present.

“There’s three perspectives on this: there’s the city, the township and the county. All three were able to make their positions known, and they were better understood by the others,” he said. “And that was a step forward.”