“A massive new development is coming to Prince Edward County that could change it forever.”

That is the headline of an article published in the Toronto Star August 29. It was, of course, gleefully shared all over the local Facebook groups.  

My father-in-law sent it to me. “Thanks!” I wrote back. “Juicy!” It was perfectly timed. Saturday morning. Coffee. Deck chair. 

The story canvasses both the major and the minor in “concerning” community issues: lack of housing options, declining affordability, the real estate market downturn, a required major water infrastructure investment, an aging demographic. 

The whole was wrapped up in Tim Jones’s lawsuit against the partners at Base31 for betraying the project’s vision.

Yikes, as they say. 

The keynote was risk. The risks in planning a major, $255 million infrastructure investment when it is obvious that the delusional—not to mention infighting—partners at Base31 have planted their flag in Nowheresville.

“The municipality…is investigating whether it should take on $255.5 million of new debt to update its water and wastewater system and to accommodate growth….While Base31 would repay a significant portion of that cost through development charges…some worry that the market downturn may stall construction and not provide those returns for decades to come.”

Yet the article opened with another kind of risk, that posed by the “massive new development” that will destroy County life as we know it.

“PEC Community Partners has approvals to build an additional 7,500 homes—including single-family homes, condos and rental apartments—on the site, enough to increase Picton’s population to around 20,000 people from 4,500. It’s a development of unprecedented scale for the municipality…one that would forever change the region known for its agriculture, wineries, farm-to-table restaurants and proximity to Sandbanks Provincial Park.”

Which is it? Pie-eyed fantasists on the road to nowhere, or the “massive new development” of the trumpeting headline? Does it matter? Both options are bad! If the developers at the Base are correct that well designed homes, priced to the market, and set within a vibrant cultural hub criss-crossed with green space and bike paths will sell, then the County we know and love will, obviously, be destroyed.

And if they aren’t, well, then we are on the hook for hundreds of millions in expensive new infrastructure. 

Bah humbug!

Endless as the article was, there were a few things it never got round to. Like the 30-year timeline for the Base’s massive plans. And the fact that development of any scale has been unable to get off the ground here because we have no more water.

In Wellington, Kaitlin Corp, the company behind the Cork and Vine subdivision, on the books in one form or another for a decade, says it will build as soon as the pipes it needs—a year behind schedule—are finally completed.

PEC Community Partners has been at the Base for 5 years. Not one house, not one apartment, has been built. Instead, over $60 million has been poured into a historic and incredibly ambitious project in adaptive reuse, the restoration and repurposing of Canada’s only remaining WWII training base. When it is complete, a unique collection of 40 original barracks and hangars — built, it is worth noting, on a barren cliff with no agricultural value whatsoever —will have been transformed into a national treasure, a living museum dedicated to fostering a connected community on the one hand, and showcasing Canadian music and art on the other.

The neighbourhoods that are to be studded around this historic center, the ones that will ruin the County, are years away. A—desperately needed—rental apartment building is coming first, followed by an initial, and modest, offering of 200 new homes of a variety of types, including ones never seen here before, like laneway housing, and designed to appeal to first-time buyers, families, and seniors. These might be built by about 2030. At the earliest.

And then we’ll see. If there’s no new water infrastructure, there won’t be any more houses. 

The County’s waterworks planning has been underway for a decade. Multi-year Class A engineering and environmental studies, population growth studies, development charges and water rates studies, studies of those studies.

While staff and consultants are tasked with producing, refining and recalibrating their reports to keep pace with changing economic conditions, council has been deadlocked for its  four-year term. Half of our representatives insist we don’t need any new infrastructure at all. The other half want to plan for growth. They support new development both to finance the needed infrastructure, and to create a more vibrant and sustainable future for those who live here.

Council is deadlocked between those who want to Make the County Great Again, and those who are looking to the future.

Housing and water are the key issues of this fall’s municipal election. The questions to ask are, first, how to go about building the water infrastructure we need without sinking in debt, and second, how to support the kind of development that will make the County a lot more affordable for a lot more people — without destroying its sense of place. 

New water infrastructure is not a wish, it’s a demonstrated need. Likewise, more housing, and more affordable housing, is not a wish, it’s essential. 

If we can agree on these basic facts, we can find solutions.