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Minaki Lodge Redevelopment — Good and Better News

The good news is that Manitoba developers Bob Banman and Bob Schinkel have as of March 25 sold the Minaki Lodge property, after ten and a half years of attempts at exceedingly high density uses on the site. The better news is that the buyer is a group led by Winnipeg businessman Doug Gratton.  Doug and his brother Glen are permanent residents of Minaki, having owned their places on Pistol Lake for eleven years.

The transaction was structured as a purchase of the three corporations that together own the Lodge site and the Governor’s cabin.  Banman and Schinkel retain only the lots in Town that have over time traveled with Lodge ownership. Here is the buying group’s announcement:

It is with great pleasure that we announce the purchase of Minaki on the River. As full-time residents of Minaki, our vision is a little different from the last ownership group. Our main vision is to see a sustainable development, with plans to decommission the sewage treatment plant and replace it with septic fields. We will sell approximately 10 water front residential lots, and 30 back/water view residential lots. 

The hotel buildings will be greatly reduced in size, and renovated into approximately eighteen 2000 square foot residential condominium units, with an appeasing exterior to enhance the beauty of the site. All historical log buildings will be renovated, and available for rentals or purchase. Our plans call for a restaurant and recreation center/common area. We will reduce the number of approved docks by approximately half.

Different ideas are still being discussed, so we are very open to suggestions from the local community. Our website is online at www.minaki.com.

Doug Gratton

Glen Gratton

Ron Davies

Harold Rempel

It has been a long time since the owner of the Minaki Lodge site has shown concern for the Minaki community and the impacts that development of this critical site can have.  Doug will be glad to hear from people through the contact information on minaki.com.

The Minaki Conservancy Board

Posted in MCA
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Minaki Lodge Redevelopment — Good News!

After the announcement last fall that the Minaki Lodge site was for sale for a 199-unit trailer park, developers David Banman and Bob Schinkel have apparently found little interest from trailer park buyers.  In response, they have now moved to a plan of selling individual residential lots.  If this plan holds, it will be a wonderful end to a long saga.

Their plan shows 39 lots for sale, using lots in the existing underlying subdivision of the Town of Minaki or combinations of those lots.  Since they rely on the existing lot layout, with no further subdivision, there is no Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing approval or process required and the lots are capable of year-round use under the Provincial Policy Statement.

Other positives:

— demolition of the hotel buildings

— individual on-site septic, so no use of the sewage treatment plant

— no dock expansion

— lots of construction work for local contractors

This proposed use — lower density residential dwellings on individual lots with on-site septic — has been urged for the Lodge site by the large group of year-round residents and by the Conservancy since the first filings with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing in 2013.  On behalf of the Conservancy, we enthusiastically support the developers’ lots proposal, and will try to help with the continued spreading of information.  A trailer park buyer could still appear, so it’s important that the developers stay on their new path.

The Minaki Conservancy Board of Directors

Posted in MCA
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Flowering Rush

The spread and impacts of flowering rush in the Winnipeg River will continue to be a focus for the Conservancy this year.  There is some progress, as awareness of the problem is increasing.  Earlier this winter Caroline Josephson participated in conversations with the Lake of the Woods District Stewardship Association and government officials in Kenora about the plant.  Cottagers in Clearwater Bay also participated, as flowering rush shows up more and more in Lake of the Woods.  These were mainly introductory meetings, but information was shared on the extent of the problem to date, potential mitigation measures, and future courses of action. Caroline has also been in contact with Manitoba officials, as the plant marches downriver to the Provincial boundary.

In addition, MNRF staff in Kenora passed along to the Conservancy in December an email from Robert Bourchier at Agriculture Canada, asking about flowering rush impacts in NW Ontario in connection with federal-level work on combating the plant with a beetle.  We took the chance in our reply to Mr. Bourchier (available by clicking here) to explain the devastation in the Winnipeg River.

Posted in MCA
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Tribunal Denies Appeal of Sewage Treatment Permit

The Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal has rejected Alex Rheault’s request for leave to appeal the issuing of an amended permit for the old Minaki Lodge sewage treatment plant.  The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks had issued the amended permit in March to allow Bob Banman and Bob Schinkel’s 198-unit trailer park on the Lodge site.

The request for leave to appeal, prepared in a collaborative effort by year-round residents of the town and the Conservancy, asserted that MEPC should have required that water quality baseline studies, now thirty-two years old, be updated, and that additional filtration of plant effluent should be required before the effluent flows directly into the Winnipeg River.  A report from R.J. Burnside and Associates, the Toronto engineering firm that has worked with the residents and the Conservancy since 2013, backed up those points.

The rejection is not a surprise, as the Tribunal’s standard of review is tilted sharply in favor of Provincial Ministries.  Under that standard, Alex’s application had to show that no reasonable person could have made the Ministry decision.  Still, since baseline studies are required under the MEPC’s own rules, and since additional filtration is now a common addition to the old treatment process in the plant, we thought it unreasonable for MEPC to refuse to include them.  The Tribunal’s decision adopts MEPC’s counter that the size of the Winnipeg River will cure all ills, and that the amended permit, while it could be better, is good enough.  The decision is available by clicking here.

Despite this result, the Conservancy and the residents will continue to stay on top of the proposed trailer park development, striving to lessen its dreadful impacts on Minaki’s rare natural environment and special community culture.

Thank you,

The Minaki Conservancy Board

Posted in MCA