City council agrees to plan to have city acquire land from the library board

City council approved a plan on Monday night to acquire land from the Peterborough Public Library Board.

A section of the property where the main branch of the library sits on Aylmer St., as well as the entire property on Park St. where the DelaFosse branch sits, don’t technically belong to the city – even though the city funds the two libraries almost entirely.

The lands are owned by the library board, a discovery that was recently made when the provincial land registry was automated.

The main branch land has been owned by the library board since 1974, and the DelaFosse land has been since 1958.

The city staff recommendation to transfer the ownership to the city — which already funds and maintains the library buildings — had already been approved by the library board.

Coun. Dan McWilliams asked how the land ended up with the library board, instead of in the control of the city — and how city staff apparently didn’t know it.

“I have difficulty understanding how this can happen, in this day and age,” he said.

Community services director Ken Doherty explained that when the land for the main branch was originally assembled in the 1970s, it was done in a piecemeal manner, instead of in one large piece.

“It was a little bit of a patchwork quilt of land acquisition,” he said.

The separate land ownership has not stopped the land from being developed with the rest of the city-owned property.

A large part of northeastern side of the recently renovated main branch – along Bethune St. — sits on land owned by the library board.

With council passing a motion to acquire the land, the city will own all the land where both branches sit, and the ownership oddity has been resolved.