Vision for Prudhommes

Lincoln moving full speed ahead on development.

The Town of Lincoln is moving full speed ahead with its vision for the large tract of Prudhommes Landing lakeside property.

Town staff and its planning consultant are working on a draft secondary plan — the blueprint that outlines its goal for more than 50 hectares — and is targeting early fall for its next public meeting.

“The idea is to have a secondary plan in place that’s going to guide the future development,” explained Kathleen Dale, the town’s director of planning and development, adding when the developer comes in with their proposal, the intent is their plan should conform to the secondary plan.

It’s been a little over a year since the property, stretching between the QEW and Lake Ontario, was sold to FBH Group.

The former amusement park land had been on the market for years.

Dale said the consultant is trying to get the plan draft ready. Once that’s done, it will be reviewed by the planning committee, circulated to various departments and will then be the subject of a formal public meeting.

The town had an old secondary plan on the books from 2014 but started from scratch with the new one.

Consultants shared a design with the public and stakeholders and came up with a number of concepts they refined into a preferred one. They’re now putting the preferred concept into the form of the secondary plan.

Dale said while the new plan will have a lot of the same principles as the old one, such as access to the lake, the main difference is more residential development. The majority of the site in the previous proposal was designated for future commercial development. The town is now focused on intensification because of its fixed urban boundaries.

The community interest has been notable. Dale said they’ve had to hold meetings at Lincoln community centre and divide workshop sessions into afternoon and evenings to accommodate the interest.

A concept plan was presented at a March community information session which set out natural heritage and open space areas, low-rise, mid-rise and high-rise areas and mixed use areas among others.

Dale said the secondary plan gets into detailed policies about permitted uses in those areas, such as building heights and urban design guidelines. There’s also some flexibility built in for the developer in terms of types of units.

“These are the goals, this is the vision,” Dale said. “We want you to come in with a plan that meets these goals and the vision of what the town would like to see happen there.”

With a kilometre of Lake Ontario shoreline, Prudhommes Landing property was one of the biggest recreation complexes in Ontario in its heyday. Founded by brothers John and George Prudhomme in 1949, it attracted thousands of people a day during the summer for dining, ballrooms and theatre.

Major blazes in the 1960s and 70s hit the property hard and it was put up for sale in 1971.

It passed through different hands and proposals, eventually featuring an amusement park with water slides.

When the amusement park closed, the property was owned for decades by Ken Fowler Enterprises. A Tim Hortons, Subway and antiques market are still operating on the site.

The property was sold in June 2016 to FBH Group.