Boating business facing opposition over proposed development in Desbarats

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Loonie Toons Pontoons and Powersports will relocate its business. In fact, the proposed rezoning is for a second storage property/facility

A proposed rezoning of a residential area in Desbarats is being met with opposition from a housing complex for people living with disabilities. 

The zoning amendment, if passed by Johnson Township council, would see Loonie Toons Pontoons and Powersports open a storage facility on three lots beside PossAbility Community Homes on Amory Street. 

PossAbility Community Homes founder and president Barb Gjos tells SooToday the marine supply business, which operates beside Highway 17 in Desbarats, would have an adverse effect upon residents in the four-unit home, especially for those with sensory issues.    

“It would be very noisy - if you could imagine a truck and a trailer with a pontoon boat on it coming down the street, right in front of everybody’s houses, and our home as well,” Gjos said. “And because it is sales, repair and storage there would be repair work going on [and] increased lighting for the facility.”

Last week, the board of directors for the not-for-profit housing corporation voted unanimously to oppose the proposed development. 

The board has fired off a letter to Johnson Township officials and council, citing noise and traffic concerns while asserting that Loonie Toons Pontoons and Powersports would impact the quality of life on the dead-end gravel street and surrounding areas should it set up shop there.

“The people that own and live on this street and in this general area bought or built homes here because it is a quiet residential area and changing the rezoning would deprive them of that,” a portion of the letter reads. 

Commercial, industrial tax base scarce, mayor says 

The way Johnson Township Mayor Blaine Mersereau explains it, the municipality is somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place. 

“I think there’s some merit there,” Mersereau said about the opposition to the proposal from the home's board of directors. “We’re pressed between two issues with the municipality. As far as the blend of the tax base that we have, it’s heavily weighted to agriculture and residential. We have just a dearth of commercial and industrial.”

“The municipality is doing what it can to help commercial-industrial operations within the municipality. So that’s the reason for the effort - it helps take some of the tax burdens off the residential taxpayers. That’s the reason we’re trying to open the door on commercial-industrial.”

Ideally, Mersereau would like to see the business owners and PossAbility board of directors get together “to see if there’s some amicable solution they can both be happy with,” rather than “a binary outcome where it’s either a yes or a no.”  

“I can certainly see the merit in their comments, and this certainly wasn’t an effort to devalue the PossAbility centre - it was more of an effort to stimulate more commercial and industrial operations within our municipality,” the mayor said.

Township council will vote on the proposal July 27. 

“Hopefully they will not go forward with it, but we are prepared to appeal it if they do,” Gjos said.

PossAbility Community Homes was originally established in 2009, with the council of the day donating the land to the not-for-profit housing corporation in order to establish affordable residential housing units for people living with disabilities.  

The first tenants moved into the housing complex in 2014.