Jason Travers and members of…

Jason Travers and members of the Ontario Parks Operations Branch:

The problem with extending the Rondeau Park cottage leases is that the current cottagers already don’t respect or follow the terms of their leases, are constantly pushing the boundaries, and nothing seems to be done about it.

Extending the leases by another 14 years is the easy thing to do, but it just kicks the can down the road, all the while enabling these cottagers to do increased damage to this important Carolinian forest land and Great Lakes shoreline, seemingly without repercussions.

Is Park Superintendent Brad Connor or anyone else doing regular checks of these cottage lots, and either fining or removing cottagers who violate the rules?

On just a cursory drive around the park North of Bennett the other day, and just at a glance, I saw these issues* (listed below).

Mr. Connor has the ability (and responsibility) to do more thorough checks all around the lots to prevent these cottagers from continuing to destroy the natural areas.

Please note that while the issue of invasive plants might seem like a gentle one, Rondeau is one of the last homes of the endangered Red Mulberry, (just one example), so having plants like White Mulberries on their lots directly prevents the Red Mulberry from regenerating (as the White is more aggressive).

I also find it concerning that the Rondeau Cottagers Association, who say on their own website that their primary goal is to lobby to privately buy & own their lots, is continued to be given a foothold. They now have at least one member on the Chatham City Council (Alyson Storey) to petition for their private and greedy remit, which would directly take from Ontario residents and more importantly, from the (sometimes endangered) flora & fauna that call Rondeau Park home.

Ideally, these leases would finally be discontinued, the land returned to nature, and a more robust plan of species protection/ invasive plant removal put in place for the future.

With the constant encroachment of global warming and destruction of natural habitats, is this not the obvious and inevitable thing to do for future planning?

But as it’s now October and it’s likely too late to make a u-turn by the December lease end, please at least commit to a more rigorous policy of checking lease violations and damage to nature, and be decisive and proactive about removing cottages that don’t comply.

Being complacent towards these cottagers’ behaviour is doing a disservice to the rest of Ontarians, and to the nature in the park itself.

(Also, please tell me you’re discounting the assured 278 “letters of approval” you’ll get to this proposal from the cottagers themselves. Of course they want their own leases to continue, and will call themselves “Stewards of the land” - ha! - to convince you. The question is whether the other 14 million citizens of Ontario actually think this is the way forward for the park.)

And instead of saying “The ministry is not considering sale of the cottage lots at this time”, please assure Ontarians that their provincial park lands will NEVER be for sale to private (and in this case, largely American,) owners.

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*Cursory/ incomplete list of issues I observed recently, and only North of Bennett. I give these as a small sample - the park needs to be doing more to observe and weed these out - literally!

Has invasive plants growing on property:
18 cases, as follows:
• vinca growing profusely in front lawns
• huge invasive honeysuckle bushes in front lawn (5 cases)
• large white mulberry in front lawn, English Ivy growing up front of cottage (2 cases)
• lily of the valley growing along cottage / in a front flower bed (2 cases)
• residential side of beach access #4 filled with euphorbia
• barberry hedge* along beach access #6 property boundary
• what looks like a barberry hedge* surrounding cottage
• big Asian meadowsweet bushes along street side property line
• Privet hedge lining front of cottage
(*also worsens tick populations)

Mowing into the designated wild areas adjoining their lots:
• 3 cases

Invasives in adjacent natural areas. Note that these are almost assuredly from cottages dumping garden waste, as going down Rondeau Road (no cottages) is fairly native, while the parallel lakeshore Road with cottages on one side is full of invasives including Japanese Honeysuckle, Dog Strangling Vine, etc.
• Vinca thick along either side of beach access #2)
• Lots of burning bush at front of beach access #3)
• Thick vinca in forest south side of one cottage, driveway lined with barberry shrubs

Renovations expanding the original building footprint:
3 cases:
• One added north side extension, doubling their footprint
• One with Tyvek wrapping currently up around a frame that exceeds the interior original cottage
• One built a new screened in front porch in the past few years that exceeds the original cottage footprint. (Can they later just reinforce those walls, and that is a loophole to expand their building?)

There are also several instances of cottagers occupying their properties as full time residences/ not using them only as recreationally, as intended.