Hello and welcome to the second in a series of short emails about the EOWC’s proposed 7 in 7+ Regional Housing Plan and what it could mean for you as a chief building official (CBO), planner or municipal CAO. This edition is dedicated to communal services, which will likely be part of the solution to building 28,000 housing units in eastern Ontario. If you received this email in error or would like to unsubscribe you can easily do so at the bottom of this email. At any time, please send your feedback to info@eowc.org.

What is the 7 in 7+ Regional Housing Plan?

The EOWC is proposing to build 7,000 affordable community housing units in eastern Ontario over a seven-year period. 7,000 is roughly half of all people on municipal housing wait lists combined. The + in the name stands for an additional 21,000 housing units at market value that will also be built as part of the project.

What are communal services?

Communal services, also known as shared drinking water and sewage systems, provide water and wastewater treatment to clusters of residences and businesses. They may also be referred to as decentralized systems or cluster systems. These systems operate on principles similar to conventional municipal services but without the reliance on a single central facility where municipal water and sewer services are either non-existent, or beyond the fiscal capacity of local government.

One company specialized in scalable water and wastewater treatment systems is Newterra out of Brockville. Their solutions are currently deployed across eastern Ontario including at the Whitehouse Terrace Hotel and Condominium Complex in Leeds and Grenville and the Bay Meadows Mobile Home Park in Prince Edward County. The video below is an example of a communal system in the Township of Southwold in southwestern Ontario.

How will communal services affect me as a CBO, planner or municipal CAO?

Implementing communal services requires out of the box thinking. Official Plans might require amending to allow for alternative water and wastewater systems. All new communal service development will need land use planning approvals by the municipality and input from the public, and municipal staff might require training to be able to conduct proper inspections of these systems. 

The County of Frontenac is currently undertaking an innovative approach towards implementing communal services. They are creating a municipal services corporation (MSC) for the purpose of overseeing the design, installation and maintenance of the communal services. There is an excellent FAQ section on communal services on the County of Frontenac’s website.

Resources

• Communal services in the County of Frontenac
• Ontario Onsite Wastewater Association - Decentralized and Communal Wastewater Systems
• Newterra Water and Wastewater Treatment Systems

Next week

Next week’s episode will be about passive home building, an energy-efficient and sustainable building design and construction standard aimed at achieving high levels of energy performance. This type of construction could come into play in the 7 in 7+ Regional Housing Plan.

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If you know CBOs, planners or municipal CAOs who might be interested in these emails, please forward this to them and encourage them to subscribe.

At any time, please send your feedback to info@eowc.org.

About the EOWC

The EOWC is a non-profit organization representing 13 upper and single-tier municipalities across rural eastern Ontario. The EOWC supports and advocates on behalf of 103 municipalities and nearly 800,000 residents. The EOWC covers an area of approximately 50,000 square kilometers from Northumberland County to the Québec border. The EOWC has gained support and momentum by speaking with a united voice to champion regional municipal priorities and work with government, business leaders, the media, and the public. For more information, visit EOWC's website at www.eowc.org.