SILCA News Letter
April, 2001
See below for late breaking news
Dear Members and Residents,
I’m sorry for the long delay between letters. My summer was interrupted by a minor surgery, recovery period and then a scramble to catch up on my work. Then came the holiday season and I now find myself with time to write you.
With the settlement of our petition to the courts behind us, I want to assure you of my commitment to working with Council to insure that such actions will not be necessary again.
This brings us to the by-law review, presently under scrutiny. We have been following this since it was announced last year. As Council informed you, there was a public open forum in October 2000 to explain the changes to our by-laws. All councilors, the mayor and two urban planners were present for questions. The gallery was composed equally of lakers and villagers, 20 odd in total. The SILCA executive and some past presidents of the fishing club were present. After a two-hour presentation with slides, questions were taken. The club representatives were concerned with the designation of club property as parklands on the colored map you received as property owners. The Council said these were not public parklands but would review the wording.
This brings us to SILCA’s suggestions concerning lakefront lots. The municipality is divided into many zones: commercial, recreational, multi-family and single-family, etc. Our concern is with the single-family lakefront lots. The general description of a building lot is as follows:
Minimum Area – 4000 Sq Meters
Minimum Depth – 60 Meters
Minimum Frontage – 50 Meters
This is all fine and dandy when the frontage is measured on the water. Our concern is the onslaught of road access to lots. The access by road brings in the potential for the minimum frontage [50 Meters] to be measured along the road, thus leaving an unknown dimension for corridors to the lake as shown in the attached diagrams. These are two very simple plans; can you imagine what a professional could come up with!
To get us back to the point, our suggestion to Council is to have a minimum lakefront dimension of 50 meters for any lot created by a new subdivision which touches the water, clearly worded so that anyone will understand. Let our past experience teach us. The Council seemed to understand the lack of definition of minimum frontage. We anxiously await their final by-law revision.
Next, I would like to thank Denise Parent for her efforts, getting "NO SEADOO’S ALLOWED" signs made and successfully convincing the Council to post them at each end of the lake. Thank you Denise.
Brent Gilday spearheaded a committee to research the stocking of the lake with trout. He then went about the task of collecting donations, arranging delivery and organizing the distribution of the trout around the lake. A good time was had by all; pictures can be seen on the SILCA website http://www.websitesrcg/silca/. A total of 3,000 speckled or red trout [8-10" long] were released, at a cost of $3,690.00. We plan to continue this scheme on an annual basis. With $4,202.00 collected, we have a balance of $512.00 to start next year’s fund. The Club was a major contributor and has promised to continue to fund our efforts. The Council said it had no funds in this year’s budget, but maybe next year (???). Thank you Brent.
Two changes to our Membership Form will include a line for Trout Stocking Donations and your E-mail address. Membership fees remain the same [$50]. We need to replenish our activity fund for potential future projects, such as water testing, shoreline restoration, etc.
The annual SILCA meeting was held at the club on July 16/2000. Present executive remains, with Donald Smithers [President], and Richard Rowat [Vice- President]. Let’s try to have a better turn out next year. I would like to thank all of you who took the initiative to use the Membership Form included with the Club package handed out late June. We decided to let the emotions of the past few years die down and did not mail out a membership request last summer. We did however remain active.
Please feel free to contact us with any thoughts on projects or if you would like to volunteer your help or join the executive.
It has come to my attention that several new members names’ from 1998 and 1999 have not been posted on our membership mailing list. We apologize for their omission and hope the list is now complete.
Keep the "LAKE EXPERIENCE" alive for future generations to enjoy.
See you soon,
Donald Smithers
[President]
[450] 226-2601
We recently purchased a CD-Rom of the final by-law review and were disappointed to find no mention of a minimum shoreline dimension.
I contacted Stephane Martin [our municipal inspector], who was unaware of this omission. He assured me that Council had indeed discussed a minimum shoreline dimension.
I then contacted both the Mayor, Marcel Tasse and Councilor Geoff Thorne. They both assured me that a minimum shoreline dimension was indeed discussed in caucus after the October Public Meeting and was intended to be adopted Dec 8th 2000.
We have since met with Mayor Tasse and explained again precisely what we would like to be included in the bylaws. This is "for any newly subdivided lot with shoreline, it must have a minimum of 50m of shoreline to be a valid building lot".
Mayor Tasse has promised to respond to our request and implied it would be accommodated in a specific bylaw revision to be passed by council.
The accompanying letter helps explain why we are requesting a shoreline dimension.
Due to the lateness of this information, we apologize to our French-speaking members for the lack of translation of this notice.
We will update in our June Membership Letter.