Limerick resident requests winter maintenance on limited-service road

By Mike Riley

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

At their March 17 meeting, Limerick Township council heard from Ken Deboo, a resident on East Bay Road in the township, requested the township provide winter maintenance on his road, which is designated a limited-service road in the township by the MTO. After discussing it, council said that it could be done if a levy was imposed on the road's residents to bring the road up to specifications for winter maintenance and for the MTO to agree to upgrade the road's classification from a limited-service road.

Deboo presented his request to council to have winter maintenance done on East Bay Road at their meeting on March 17. He said the request was so that residents of this 0.4 kilometre stretch of road, three full-time and 13 seasonal, would have unfettered access to their homes all year round, and that road repair equipment and most importantly emergency vehicles, would also have that kind of access. He said they were paying a private contractor to plow the road but that contractor was retiring. He said that there were some issues to be addressed like obtaining a survey of East Bay Road to bring township records up to date, a protruding rock on the road that would need to be removed, a Hydro pole that would need to be moved from the edge of the road, upgrading the limited service status of the road for enhanced summer maintenance as well as winter maintenance, and that East Bay Road is a forced road, through at least four properties, including Deboo's property, an issue that would need to be addressed with all property owners.

“We're just asking for consideration that we get our road plowed in the wintertime,” he says.

In addition to East Bay Road, there are five other roads in Limerick Township designated as limited service roads, including; Brinklow Road, Nicholson Lane, Turnbull Road, Phillips Lane, Benfield Road.

Mayor Kim Carson thanked Deboo for his presentation and said that MTO decides the classifications on the roads, and they can't go against that. She also mentioned that there would be issues with it being a forced road. According to www.LawInsider.com, a forced road is a publicly used existing roadway on private land, usually to get around an obstacle that prevents the road from being built on the surveyed public road allowance. Carson stressed that it would set a precedent if the township did winter maintenance on East Bay Road, as the other five limited-service roads in the township would expect the same treatment, and the township didn't have the money in their budget to do so.

“We could offer a levy for everyone on that road where their taxes would go up until we've paid back the cost of bringing that road up to standard. And then it would have to be reassessed by the MTO that it's at that standard to be plowed. So that's one of the ways around it and all the residents can decide if they want to do the levy and pay it over a number of years until the road is up to plow standard. We did do this kind of levy before on Pleasure Bay Road,” she says.

Deboo thanked council and said he would take all this up with the other residents over the next several months and they could decide what they want to do. Bancroft This Week reached out to Deboo for further comment but did not receive a reply by press time.

Tisdale told Bancroft This Week that she thought Deboo's presentation went well.

“There is a lot of work to be done to bring the road up to standard for winter maintenance.  Staff will be looking into the initial budget implications.  The concern of Council is that if this is done for one road it will be requested for all limited-service roads.  This is where it starts to get very expensive,” she says. “Limited-service roads are basically the same as the 6B roads that Tudor and Cashel [Township] referenced the past few years.”