A city stormwater project costing north of $11 million will also likely cost two Barrie landowners some — or all — of their property.
Not right away, but soon enough, because expropriation could be needed for what’s called the Whiskey Creek culvert and channel improvements, The Boulevard to Brennan Avenue.
“I mean, I love it here and I see no reason to take (demolish) the house. But that’s the way that they want to go,” said Stan Street, 78, who has lived at 7 Brennan Ave. for 40 years, and is losing his home and property.
“What can I do about it except fight for my rights and price, and relocate myself," he told BarrieToday.
“When planning and designing infrastructure projects, the city aims to avoid impacting private property,” said Sherry Diemert, Barrie’s director of infrastructure. “However, sometimes those impacts are unavoidable and in rare cases the full property is required.”
On Oct. 23, city council gave final approval to a motion that city lawyers be authorized to begin expropriation proceedings, if required, to obtain the property necessary to facilitate the Whiskey Creek project, which involves a portion of 199 The Boulevard and the full acquisition of 7 Brennan Ave.
Council did this with no discussion.
The province generally defines expropriation as taking land without the consent of the owner by an expropriating authority, in this case the City of Barrie, in the exercise of its statutory powers.
The lower section of Whiskey Creek, from The Boulevard to Lake Simcoe, has limited stormwater flow capacity and is prone to flooding, according to the city. This project improves Whiskey Creek's conveyance capacity from The Boulevard to Brennan Avenue, to reduce frequency of flooding.
Kristin Dibble Pechkovsky, a planner by profession, lives at 199 The Boulevard. The property is about a half acre in size.
The Whiskey Creek drainage improvement will result in the loss of land on their property, near the corner of White Oaks Drive and The Boulevard. This would consist of a triangular piece of land 17 metres along The Boulevard by 12 metres by 21 metres.
“We’d rather not lose it — we love our property and our trees,” she said. “I’m not an engineer, however I expect the issue with flooding in this area is largely due to development upstream (from her property), and the capacity of the culvert.
“The water has to go somewhere," Dibble Pechkovsky added.
Street, a retired maintenance supervisor with the school board, said he’s having problems with the expropriation on multiple fronts.
The project is scheduled to be designed in 2024-26 and be in pre-construction in 2027, with anticipated construction 2028-29.
Street says he was supposed to be out in June, so he leased a place. Now he’s paying rent on one place while still paying property taxes on Brennan Avenue, but doesn’t expect work to start until late spring next year.
Street says the city has offered him just more than $700,000 for his Brennan Avenue property, the house and the 200-by-100-yard property, but he thinks $1 million is fair, given that a home in this Minet’s Point neighbourhood recently sold for $1.5 million, he says.
“They’ve lowballed me, a ridiculously low price and no, I’m not happy at all,” he said. “It doesn’t suit the area around here at all.”
Andrew Mills, the city’s manager of legal services, said that’s not the case.
“The city pays fair market value for property it acquires as determined by a third-party appraiser and in accordance with the requirements of the Expropriations Act,” he said.
Street concedes the flooding can sometimes be bad there, but says there are also design problems.
“It has been (flooding). I mean, it’s not touching onto my property, but it does flood the road,” he said. “But when heavy rains come down, it has eroded my property, and taken around 10 feet off of my property. I’ve been on to the city time and time and time again to restore the groundwork.
"I’ve got trees that I panted (near Whiskey Creek) when I first got here on the embankment … now they’re falling into the creek," Street added. "They’ve done nothing. I was constantly on their backs, complaining about the poor installation.”
Diemert said alternatives to the drainage improvements to Whiskey Creek were considered through a master plan and an environmental assessment.
“The preferred alternative unfortunately requires the city purchase the impacted property on Brennan (Avenue),” she said. “The engineering design was further refined during the detail design phase, and confirmed the need for the entire property in order to implement the solution.
"The impact on the individual property was considered against the broader benefits of the project that protects people and property from flooding," Diemert added.
As for any resolution, Street says his lawyers are talking to city lawyers, and he will take legal advice on whether or not to fight the expropriation, in the courts or at the Ontario Land Tribunal (former Ontario Municipal Board), which resolves contentious municipal issues.
Street says this situation involves more than the price of real estate and flooding solutions.
“My wife has just passed. I’m sitting here by myself, wondering which way I go,” he said.
“She loved this place,” he added, gesturing toward his home. “The only good thing about her passing is she won’t be here when it comes down.”
Negotiated agreements of purchase and sale are the preferred methods of property acquisition by the city, but in certain circumstances that’s not always possible and expropriation proceedings may become necessary to acquire property, according to the city.
Should expropriation become necessary, city staff will continue efforts to negotiate agreements of purchase and sale concurrently with expropriation proceedings — until such time as the expropriation has been completed and it is no longer feasible to do so.
The first phase of this project is to replace and enlarge two culverts — Whiskey Creek under The Boulevard and Brennan Avenue — with one-in-50-year storm culverts, and upgrade the channel in between the two culverts.
This project does not take private property out of the floodplain, but reduces the frequency and severity of flooding with respect to creek flows. A sidewalk is being built to connect White Oaks Road over the Brennan Avenue culvert to the Minet’s Point Park entrance.
The design increases the size of the culverts to accommodate anticipated flows due to climate change and adds a pedestrian connection from White Oaks Road to Minet’s Point Park.
There will be minimal impacts to nearby Minet’s Point Park and Beach during construction.
The city’s 2024 capital plan says about $11.13 million is to be spent on this project by 2030.
Funding for it comes from the city’s development charges reserves, the tax capital reserve, the tax funded stormwater capital reserve and debentures, which is how municipalities borrow money.
