Members of the Greater Molega Lake Lot Owners Association want changes to a proposed private road levy bylaw. (Rick Conrad)

A property owners group in Queens County’s growing cottage country hopes regional council can pass a new bylaw by the fall that would make it easier to collect fees to maintain private roads.

Representatives from the Greater Molega Lake Lot Owners Association appealed to councillors at their regular meeting on Tuesday to make a few changes to the region’s proposed bylaw on private road maintenance charges.

The bylaw has been in the works since 2019.

More than 5,700 properties in Queens County are connected to roads that aren’t maintained by the municipality or the province. Most of these roads are in the areas of Molega, Ponhook and Annis lakes.

The association invoices property owners an annual fee for that maintenance, using manually generated lists. It charges property owners annual fees of $408.25 for developed land and $149.50 for vacant land. Those amounts include HST.

Under the new bylaw, the region would collect the fees on annual municipal tax bills, and then remit those to the association.

Dwayne Primeau is president of the Molega lot owners group.

“Optimistically, when this bylaw has passed and hopefully when we adopt it, what will happen is the region will issue a tax invoice that includes a road maintenance levy. And that would essentially be the same fee that is collected at one time and then remitted from the Region of Queens to the association to support us in delivering the service to the citizens. ”

The group represents 1,233 property owners, covering more than 1,200 hectares or 3,000 acres. It’s the largest recreational development in Atlantic Canada. Many people now live in the area full-time.

The association is responsible for maintaining 52 kilometres of roadway, including 10 km of provincially owned K class roads, 13 boat launches and three bridges.

But treasurer Bruce MacInnis told councillors that about 20 per cent of land owners don’t pay their fees.

“And it is quite an expensive process because we’re duplicating effectively what they do here (at the region),” he said in an interview after the meeting.

“There’s a lot of people we just have difficulty finding because we have to maintain mailing lists and the information’s not always easy to find. So that takes a lot of time as well. And we’re volunteers.”

As part of the proposed bylaw, the region would keep about five per cent of the fees they collect to pay for administrative costs. The association estimates that would cut about $15,000 from what it gets from the levy. It wants that lowered to two to three per cent.

The group said a lower percentage would allow it to hire a manager to oversee its work in maintaining the private roads.

The bylaw would also require agreements with lot owners associations to be renewed every year. The group wants that changed to every five years, with renewal based on meeting certain criteria.

Primeau said after the meeting that he’s cautiously optimistic the bylaw will be adopted before the group begins sending out invoices in November.

“The message we’re trying to relate today is that our members and our board are are in support of and in need of this assistance to continue to maintain and manage the infrastructure, supporting this growing part of the region.

“We would really love to see this be in place and ready for us to adopt prior to November of 2025, which is when we typically would follow our manual process to invoice for the coming year’s fees.”

Councillors had suspended first reading of the bylaw in January so that they could become more familiar with it. It’s unknown when council will bring it back.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Road crews were working on the Mount Pleasant Road repaving on Thursday in Brooklyn. (Rick Conrad)

It’s that time of year again. The sounds of trucks and heavy machinery along with the smells of freshly laid asphalt will be popping up around Queens County as road work season gets underway.

Public Works Minister and Queens MLA Kim Masland said Thursday that more than $20 million is being spent this summer and fall on sprucing up roads and bridges around the county.

It’s part of the $583 million the government is setting aside for road and bridge work around the province this year.

“We have been very successful in advocating for some roads. But also, we have some very poor quality roads here,” Masland said.

“We are certainly getting our fair share (of work) this year. It seems like there’s never enough money to do all of the road work. But I certainly feel as MLA and certainly as minister that we’re playing catchup on some of these roads.”

Masland said that many roads in Queens County appeared to have been neglected when the Tim Houston government took over in 2021.

“I’m really happy with the work we’ve been able to do since becoming government.”

Some of that work has already begun. The 1.6-kilometre stretch of Mount Pleasant Road in Brooklyn is being repaved. That counts for about $1 million.

“That’s needed some work for a while. That’s one of the roads I really advocated for,” Masland says.

Queens MLA Kim Masland. (Rick Conrad photo)

About $8 million will be spent on ongoing work to replace the Pleasant River Bridge in North Queens.

And the long-rumoured repaving project for the Brooklyn Shore Road is slated to begin this summer, Masland says. That’s 5.5 kilometres at a cost of about $3 million from Brooklyn Wharf Road to Eastern Shore Road. 

Known locally as the “shore road”, it’s the scenic route to the popular Beach Meadows Beach.

“That will be done this summer. Very, very bad road. When you drive that, you’re literally having to go over on the opposite side of the road.

“With the Brooklyn Shore Road, it has deteriorated very badly and it’s a safety issue now, so that’s why they have brought that forward as a candidate to be repaved.”

Masland says officials from her department are always driving and inspecting roads and bridges in their areas. She says that as MLA and as minister, she also nominates projects after hearing from constituents.

“The public are the ones that really drive concerns. I actually go drive many of these roads myself. If somebody calls me with a complaint about a road, I go and drive that road myself.”

The province released its five-year highway improvement plan last December. 

Masland said the gravel road work budget this year is about $55 million, more than double what it was in 2021. And the province has also increased the bridge rehabilitation budget to $60 million. And her department is devoting $22 million toward the rural impact mitigation fund, which handles things like pavement patching and brush cutting.

“So it shows you the costs of doing these projects. They are not cheap. So to try to manage people’s expectations is certainly very difficult. Everybody’s road that they travel on is the most important. And that’s what makes it very difficult. … If I could pave everyone’s road, I would certainly pave everyone’s road because i understand that the road you travel on is the one that’s important to you.

“But there’s just not enough money to pave every road.”

She said she’s also happy to see the ongoing Highway 103 twinning project, which now reaches from Halifax to Hubbards. 

“Many people from Queens certainly travel the 103 to Halifax for medical appointments, school. It just blows my mind the amount of close collisions that almost happen every day. Twinning does save lives. It is costly but you can’t put a price on a life. “

Masland says that although maintaining roads and bridges is expensive, she’s proud of the work her department is doing. 

“I’m just really glad where we are now. The team’s doing great work. Our maintenance supervisor is out there talking to people, thinking outside the box on how to resolve issues and to try to get work elevated, and Queens County should be very proud of that.”

List of road and bridge projects in Queens County this summer and fall:

• Brooklyn Shore Road, from Brooklyn Wharf Road to Eastern Shore Road
• Mount Pleasant Road, from Trunk 3 to Brooklyn Shore Road
• Reinstating two segments of retaining wall along Shore Road
• Old Port Mouton Road: from Highway 103 Exit 20A to end of service
• Old Westfield Road: from Trunk 8 easterly
• Carters Beach Road and parking lot upgrades
• East Port L’Hebert road repaving
• Albany New Road, rebuilding gravel road
• Trunk 3: from Broad River Road easterly to White Point Road
• New Grafton Road: from Trunk 8 southerly
• Pleasant River Bridge, Route 208

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com