Lake of Bays council has approved a 180-day moratorium on the roads license agreement (RLA) for existing private roads and driveways on unopened municipal road allowances.
According to the Ontario Municipal Act 2001, road allowances refer to allowances initially laid out for roads by a Crown surveyor. These can include roads, streets, lanes, or dirt tracks that are owned by the municipality.
During the Aug. 13 council meeting, Lake of Bays Mayor Terry Glover read multiple reports from seasonal resident Brigitte Lavoie representing a group of Lake of Bays residents regarding the imposed roads license agreement, which was passed in June.
One of the reports reads residents are “deeply concerned” with recent municipal attempts to “disproportionately download shared municipal responsibilities onto targeted groups of taxpayers under the premise of saving the average taxpayer money.”
“We are being disproportionately disadvantaged by this bylaw triggered by a single resident who applied for a short-term rental license (likely to help pay for their mortgage—as young families these days have to do),” reads the report.
The Lake of Bays website states they are imposing the RLA to reduce potential risk and liability to the Township, road users, the public, and all municipal taxpayers. It also says over the past decade, insurance premiums for the Township and municipalities across Ontario have skyrocketed due to multi-million-dollar liability-related court cases.
“The Township now pays over half a million dollars in insurance premiums per year, which is four times higher than in 2015, representing a substantial increase of just over 300 per cent. This increase is the equivalent of a 6.25 per cent property tax rate increase for each resident in Lake of Bays,” reads the website.
Glover maintains the requirements are necessary to ensure the municipality does not face liability issues.
Council agreed to give the moratorium to the residents to allow them to provide feedback on the agreement and intends to consider it before the moratorium ends.
The moratorium applies to all existing private roads and driveways under By-law 2019-136 that are utilizing an unopened Township road allowance as a means of vehicular access to their property.
