Until 2007,  an 18 acre property on Roblin Lake, now called Prince Edward County Lakeside Retreat, was home to a Salvation Army summer camp. Its Tourist Commercial Exception zoning restricts it to operating as a non-profit during the summer months.

The current owners purchased the property in 2020 from the Greek Orthodox Diocese and applied to rezone it Tourist Commercial. The designation would allow a year-round, for-profit business. That application was heard by the Planning and Development Committee in January 2021. 

At that time, several residents submitted concerns over water quality and quantity, increased traffic, light pollution, and noise.

After the meeting, the owner paused the application. “I called every couple of years to see what was going on,” said Mike Seeger, a resident on Roblin Lake.

Five years later, the application is on the agenda at Planning for a Statutory Public Hearing with comments from the municipality and other agencies, such as Quinte Conservation.

Residents have organized into a 65-person email list.

“While we don’t have a formal cottage association, we function much like one,” said resident Carlin Poole. “We have never needed a formal organization until now because we have never faced a threat on this lake such as this.”

Their chief concern is that the proposed year-round use of municipal water and the property’s on-site septic system have not been studied. 

“There’s been lots of projects in the County but they’ve been from the ground up,” Mr. Seeger said. “They have to do the traffic study, water study, drawings, the whole works.”

Those studies are not required because the applicant is working with previously developed land, and there are no plans to build or increase capacity at the site, beyond extending the number of months it’s in operation. 

The  plan is to adapt the existing structures, which include 15 cabin rooms, a pool, a pool house, a craft building, maintenance building, cafeteria, event space, and accessory buildings. 

A planning rationale, prepared by RFA Planners, notes “there are no physical changes proposed to the subject lands and water quality is anticipated to be maintained.”

Quinte Conservation’s Source Protection Plan states that the municipal drinking water system that draws from Roblin Lake services 175 people. Another 82 properties around the lake are serviced by private wells and shore wells that draw directly from the lake. 

“Almost every year we experience low water levels into the summer months,” Ms. Poole noted.

“2016 there was a level three water emergency and there was the same thing this past summer where the Conservation authority asked people to conserve up to 30 percent,” said Mr. Seeger. “It’s not an imaginary problem.”

“It’s a small inland lake, not like Lake Ontario or the Bay of Quinte,” said Andrew Shaw, another resident. “In seasons like this past summer, we had a drought, a huge drought. People were taking their boats out, people were having to get their wells filled up.”

The property falls within Intake Protection Zone 1 of the Ameliasburgh Intake Protection Zone. This zone, which accounts for most of Roblin Lake, scores a 10 on the vulnerability score, the highest possible rating. 

One of the biggest threats to water quality intake zones is contamination from septic systems. 

The former camp’s septic system received an Environmental Compliance Approval from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks and can service about 296 people. 

“We’re dubious because it hasn’t been used for a long time,” said Mr. Seeger. He wants an engineering report on the septic capacity as a requirement for approval.  

The application will be heard at the January 28th Planning and Development Committee meeting.