Attended the November Council meeting on the 20th. Kim ran a very quick, efficient meeting. Of general interest, the building department has issued almost twice as many permits this year as last. The fire department will be acquiring a used, smaller 4WD combination rescue van and pumper that will be able to respond to smaller roads and also provide single vehicle response to traffic accidents. There were 4 shoreline road purchases and one lot line adjustment on the agenda. All passed with no changes and little discussion. Good job by the Planning Committee on those. The by-law enforcement officer is losing ground on the nailed up "ugly signs" on the roads. Council asked the Clerk to start to write letters quoting the by-law to offenders so hopefully the signs will not be replaced once removed. I guess it is difficult for the municipality to actually issue fines and collect them from out-of-town companies that post illegal signs. There is work going on with the post office to move the mailboxes from the old Trudys store to the parking lot of the new St. Ola Station store. And, the biggest news for Limerick Lake residents is that the municipality has issued a "s__t or get off the pot" letter to Limerick Estates giving them until November 2024 to complete all of their conditions or the municipality will "de-certify" their subdivision and condominium corporation approvals. (Technically those approvals expired back in 2014, but this would make it official)
Wishing lifetime Limerick Lake cottagers Gord and Bonnie a happy 50th anniversary today. (Dec. 1)
Information from FOCA on the Underutilized Housing Tax for 2023:
Underused Housing Tax (UHT) Updates
As part of the federal governments Fall Economic Statement released last week, most Canadian corporations, partnerships, and trusts have become “excluded owners” for UHT purposes, and no longer need to file the tax form annually; however, American owners of Canadian seasonal properties are still implicated in the filing requirements. Additionally, on October 31st, the UHT filing deadline for the 2022 calendar year was extended to April 30, 2024. (Note that filing for calendar 2023 will also be due on that date.)
For those who read this for snowmobiling information, Trudys General store has been closed for about a year now. The empty store building is on the market, listed with about its 3rd broker in a year. Now for the good news. Directly across the street to the south there is a new store, St. Ola Station. The store is located in the previous "Sams Place" restaurant building. It is open seven days a week with groceries, baked goods, take out prepared foods, and Maple Dale cheese. The owners are working hard to get LCBO approval and MTO approval to sell gasoline, but as of now they do not have those items. Nearest fuel is the gas station in Coe Hill.
The municipality will once again be operating its snowmobile and truck/trailer parking area off Limerick Lake Road at 44.864854, -77.654692 on Google Maps. (near where Limerick Lake Road crosses Bass Creek) Nice big parking lot with plenty of room to easily turn around.
Unfortunately, the invasive species effort by FOCA known as IsampleON, has not worked out as well as expected. I took samples on Limerick Lake on August 19th and submitted them to FOCA according to their instructions. (about 120 lakes across eastern Ontario were sampled around the same time) The lab that tried to isolate European Water Chestnut DNA (the invasive species being tested for) in those samples has been mostly unable to do so. From what I understand, unlike animals, plant DNA is not very different from species to species. And the samples of raw lake water are full of assorted DNA. FOCA is trying to figure out how to get some value out of the effort. Perhaps by storing the data from each lake sampled and using that as a baseline for further sampling in future years. Bit of a disappointment. While on the subject of FOCA, its CEO, Terry Rees has announced his retirement after 20 years at the helm. The spring AGM will his last official duties. It has been a pleasure working with Terry both at FOCA and on the Source Water Protection committee over those years.
Next autumn milestone for the lake is when it freezes over 100%. In my years at the marina that was as early as early December, and as late as a few days after New Years. Hopefully it freezes quickly and the 950 snowmobile trail can open at its normal, late January time.
Day burning started on November 1.
The dump is open: Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and Holiday Mondays 11AM to 4:30 during winter hours.
The Limerick chain of lakes are in fisheries zone 15. Unless there are changes to the usual seasons, (the 2024 regulations are not yet available on the MNR website) bass season will open June 22, 2024 (it closes for this year on November 30) Lake trout season will open on January 1, 2024 and will close September 30, 2024. Please remember that the Limerick chain of lakes has a "slot size" for lake trout that MUST be returned to the lake if caught. It is roughly 16 to 22 inches. It is also a ONE line lake for ice fishing.
