Thanks Steph and ~G for the nice comments.
Since I do not have any relatives save one cousin from my side of the family here in Canada - And Peter has never been really close with his two sisters and neither I with my only brother - Peter and I have spent a great deal of our "family" time with my parents.
We used to take a lot of our vacations together - golfing and timeshare vacations to the south as well.
They have always been there for us - and helped us whenever we have been in need.
They provided for a super amount of opportunities for me when I was growing up and support in my sporting, education and employment ventures.
The four of us have a lot of fun - and now our time is getting limited and every opportunity we can spend time with them will mean the world to us. And what a better way than to have them really close - but not like in a neighbourhood - but in the country - one up on the mainland and one down by the water - the absolute best of both worlds....
Someone upstairs has watched over us so so so many times to keep us safe, together and helped us through some pretty tough health issues.
This is three pictures I have stitched together. To give you an idea of the area in which our lot it located. It is taken from a little rock outcrop island out in the Bay - and that Bay is the most southeasterly Bay of Stoney Lake.
Our lot is at the mouth of a finger outlet - you can see our Blue Cruiser on the left. The Large house you see is the Doctors Place to the North of our proposed location. And the dock beyond us is our neighbours to the south.
This process that we have gone through (and sorry to say it is not quite over yet) we have had to show a lot of restrain - always taking the high road - refusing every step of the way to retaliate to the oppositions mud slinging. And believe me we have been dragged through it - to the point of tears! Their actions have been slanderous. Their approach through malicious, frivolous, even deliberately lying that have caused weekly and monthly delays.
We dread - once we clear the 20 days - what nightmares we will be up against when we start to build.
We spent most of today studying the Ontario Municipal Board appeal procedures and the Provincial Planning Act. With this process we are not putting it past these people that they will be malicious enough to submit an appeal even when they know they have no grounds for appeal - it will be their attempt to further delay us and hope that we will give up our determination. If they do appeal, our course would be to request a demand Motion - to call for a Dismissal without Hearing. These people barked up the wrong tree with Peter and I. They have no idea how thick family BLOOD is.
We have a very complex process to obtain minor variances here in this province. Each variance has to meet 4 key tests set forth by the OMB - they must meet the general intent of the Provincial Planning Act and Comprehensive Zoning By-Laws. In addition each variance must be deemed minor in nature and be reasonable for the development of the land.
To give you an idea how frustrating our process is - on our 6th house design and our 2nd hearing - the Township called for their own Planning engineer to comment on our submission in regards to the 4 tests. A 7 page report was prepared - stating that we had MET all the tests - and in addition the issues that had been brought up by the opposition - were not justified. And still the COA - DENIED the application. This is a common practice of Local Committees where the emotions are high and issues sensitive they hand off the difficult decision to the Province. And leave the applicant high and dry with NO support - and no one in their right mind appeals to OMB when you do not have the support of the decision making committee. So the previous hearing left us with no alternative but to resubmit a completely new plan AGAIN - That denial cost over $10,000 more dollars and almost a further year delay!!!! The committee had the power to work with the applicant to come to an amicable compromise - but we were not given the time of day.
And prior to that - the comedy of errors....our first hearing - was heard by X committee - they were missing a member - thus only left 2 members including the chair that does not vote unless in the situation a member is missing - The opposition lawyer showed up and dropped a 20 page epistle on a divisional court case the day of the hearing!!! but the applicant has to have all their documents in 2 weeks before the hearing - now how fair is that? - Basically he tried telling the committee how to do their job. This scared the country folk so they deferred the decision - and used the excuse of a site visit as the deferral. Next we were notified that the committee make up changed in between meetings and because of the our sensitive application with such unjustified opposition the township was advised by their lawyer that the Whole notification and hearing process had to be repeated!!!! another 2 month delay and an opportunity for the opposition to fuel a mob development over our application.
And this is just what kind of "day" it has been for 3 years now!
But at the end of the day it boils down to pure greed jealousy, because they were not us - who happened to be in the right place at the right time to buy a lot with a million dollar view on an fabulous lake in the Kawarthas. The opposition had every opportunity to purchase the lot for themselves - but they did not - we did!
Sorry for the long......wind bag spew - it is nice to vent and who else can I vent with but with my silver sisters......
A few more...
This is taken just above the dock looking out into the bay. You can see that little rock crop island just behind the Birch Tree
This will be the view from my Mom's Bedroom!!! - Dad has his up in the loft above her and will have an even more spectacular view. The great room will also enjoy most of this view - but will also be looking through the trees you see to the right of this picture.
And this one is taken from our south property line. Our dock and boat is very protected and does not stick out into the inlet like sore thumbs like all the other docks - but then according to the opposition it is our dock that is impeding the boaters - coming from the mouth of the person who owns the dock that actually does impede the boaters.
The natural vegetation has grown tremendously from this picture the sumacs are huge! giving us lots of privacy but still we can great views. The dock is tucked behind the little pine at the edge in the middle of the pic.
I am sure I posted some of these years ago
can't remember now...
