The Serfs of Tiny Township
In this township north of Toronto, new bylaws will require property owners to get permission to build just about anything, even a birdfeeder.
By Lawrence Solomon | The Financial Post
Under a new bylaw scheduled to pass next month in Tiny, Ont., a rural township on the shores of Georgian Bay, thousands of property owners will lose their right to do anything to their property apart from “activities such as garden weeding, raking, and minor trimming of vegetation.” Without township permission, residents will be barred from installing a birdfeeder, planting trees or erecting a flagpole, let alone building a tool shed or larger structure.
Not that the township intends to deny reasonable applications from residents for birdfeeders and the like. As residents were assured in a recent public information session, the local authorities will grant all reasonable requests upon payment of a modest fee.
The bylaw is a step toward restoring the centuries-old relationships between masters and serfs, where benevolent masters granted their serfs wide latitude in the use of lands, as long as they paid their dues in taxes. In some cases, deserving serfs were even made nominal owners of the lands they worked, much as Tiny’s residents retain formal title to the lands they occupy.
Tiny’s new bylaw is designed to ensure that residents take their responsibilities as owners seriously and don’t make changes to their property lightly. To determine whether a request is justified, the township requires that the property owner provide what it calls a “sketch” that includes “a) lot lines; b) existing buildings, structures, shoreline retaining walls, large boulders, tent structures, awnings, gazebos, decks, fire pits etc.; c) proposed shoreline construction and/or shoreline site alteration including all proposed buildings, structures, shoreline retaining walls, large boulders, tent structures, awnings, gazebos, decks, fire pits, etc.; d) location of buildings and structures on abutting lots; and, e) the location of permanent and intermittent watercourses and ditches on and adjacent to the subject property.”
Those are the minimum requirements to erect, say, a flagpole. Larger projects may require a survey completed by an Ontario Land Surveyor showing the 178-metre elevation, setbacks to proposed shoreline construction, shoreline site alteration and studies “not limited to: (1) Wave uprush/Coastal Engineering Study, (2) Coastal Geomorphology Study, (3) Flooding, Erosion, Slope Stability Reports, (4) Geotechnical/Soils Stability Report, (5) Terms of Reference for the above studies must be to the satisfaction of the Director. (6) Deposit may be required for peer review of supporting studies and reports.”
The new bylaw does more, too. To remove opportunities for disputes and protect its treasury, the township inserts development agreements into title deeds. “Where deemed appropriate by the Township, the applicant and/or owner may be required to enter into a development agreement with the Township which may be registered on title to the land on which the work is to be performed or registered to adjacent lands owned by the owner.”
For a renovation or other building project under existing rules, Tiny requires property owners to obtain a building permit, to pay for it, and to have the construction validated by its building inspector at the project’s completion, as would be expected. But progress never sleeps. As seen in the innovative development agreements that Tiny has already been requiring of shoreline property owners on private lanes, if the township’s building inspectors mistakenly approve an unsafe construction, leading to property damage or even to loss of life, the development agreements not only prevent property owners from seeking compensation from the township but also make property owners liable for damage to third parties.
These existing development agreements have worked so well to date in giving Tiny rights associated with ownership without the responsibilities of ownership that it has made it a feature in its coming bylaw and extended it over much of its land mass.
This new bylaw, which is deemed necessary to protect dunes and beaches from misuse by their owners, applies to all privately owned properties along Tiny’s 70 kilometres of Georgian Bay shoreline. Specifically, the bylaw extends 45 metres inland from a point on or near the shore, defined as 178 metres above sea level. In many if not most cases, the 45 metres will extend far enough up property owners’ lots to include their cottages and in many cases their entire lot, requiring township permission to install a gate or enclose garbage bins by the roadside.
Those who might consider Tiny Township’s bylaw to be overbroad are taking a narrow, ahistorical view. For most of human history in most of the world, property was held by the few while the many were subservient. The past 300 years or so, which in some parts of the western world saw property held by the many, has been an aberration that is slowly returning to form. As we amble back along the road to serfdom, property is slowly transforming from an asset into a liability, vulnerable to the whims of petty functionaries. The process is relentless and inexorable, though imperceptible at first. It starts small, as in Tiny.
Lawrence Solomon is a founding columnist at Financial Post and a serf of Tiny Township. To contact, email: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com.
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The original version of this commentary is available at the publisher’s website here.