The expansion of Quinte’s Isle Campark in Prince Edward County has officially been approved to move ahead.
At Tuesday’s special Prince Edward County council meeting councillors voted in favour of amendments to the Official Plan and zoning by-laws to allow the expansion to move forward.
The owners are looking to expand to the east into land already owned by Quinte’s Isle. The expansion would see another section added to the trailer park with 337 park model trailer sites to be named “Pebble Beach East.”
The land in question has 821 metres of frontage on Lake Ontario and ends at Welbanks Road. It is also situated near two Provincially Significant Wetlands, the Soup Harbour PSW to the east and the Salmon Point PSW to the west.
The approval involves redesignating the lands, currently listed as Rural Type 2, to Shore Land in order to allow the 337 trailer site expansion to go ahead.
For Tuesday night’s special meeting 29 people were signed up to provide public comment on the matter. Twenty-six people actually appeared and all of the comments made were in opposition of council approving the expansion.
The main areas of concern included the natural heritage, cultural heritage, traffic concerns and whether or not the expansion, which would increase the total number of trailer sites at Quinte’s Isle to over 900, fits the vision for the county as laid out in the official plan.
In a presentation, representatives of the applicants explained how they addressed the concerns raised by the public. They’ve instituted a 30-metre setback from both the Lake Ontario shoreline and Welbanks Road. The owners of the campark will make upgrades to Welbanks Road to ensure that it can still be used by farmers while also putting in an emergency access to accommodate emergency services.
Wetlands and wooded areas that fall within the property are being built around so as to not disturb them. Multiple extra studies have been undertaken and looked at by county staff and others including environmental studies and traffic consultation. Lastly, the density of the entire campark once the new development is added would be 6.4 units per hectare, which is one fifth of the allowed density.
According to the presentation, the campark will also bring an estimated $4.5 million annually into the county’s economy.
When it came time for decisions, councillors were quick to thank the planning staff for the work they’ve put into the application, which has been ongoing since 2016.
Multiple councillors spoke of the long process and the amount of changes this application has undergone. The general message was that, despite the concerns, most of them had been addressed.
Councillor Bill Roberts spoke about how the expansion is not only important for tourism but also for use by county residents.
“Who is going to use the Quinte Isle expansion? Well, it’s the folks that use it now. They’re mostly middle-income families. They can’t afford to buy properties here like many of us can and are lucky too, I’m grateful for being able to do that. But they’re middle-income families, maybe even lower-middle income families.”
As each councillor had their say on the matter before a vote was called the overall response was positive and supportive.
Mayor Steve Ferguson commented that despite all the public comments and scrutiny the application has faced since 2016, he felt it was important to move forward on the expansion.
“We’ve got an obligation to allow Prince Edward County to be enjoyed by others. We have an extremely robust short-term accommodation sector that is effectively unaffordable to many people, or unavailable to people that live here. I think that it’s important that we afford, where possible, and make decisions on the basis of helping people who may reside here of lesser means.”
The matter was put to a vote and passed nearly unanimously.