Issues
License of Occupation
Algonquin Highlands’ License of Occupation Policy, approved through By-Law 2023-98, applies in cases where privately owned infrastructure is located on a Township-owned shore road allowance separated by a municipally maintained road from the adjacent residence. It was approved by AH Council during a November 2, 2023 meeting and came into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. It does not apply in cases where the public shore road allowance is separated by a provincial highway from the adjacent residence or in cases where the Township-owned shore road allowance directly abuts a private property.
This by-law already exists in other municipalities such as Dysart et al, Highlands East, Minden Hills, Lake of Bays, and Muskoka. There it does not retroactively affect property owners with pre-existing structures, nor has it been actively enforced. AH Council has made this by-law retroactive (against the advice of the town planner) and will be enforcing it as of January 1, 2026. Those who do not comply will be forced to remove all encroachments or the Township will have them removed, at the adjacent property owner’s expense. Council has failed to clarify if the property owner will be responsible for paying to remove the structures that were already there when their property was purchased.



MPAC statement for North Shore Road


Why was this policy created?
According to AH Council this policy was created, based on advice from the Township’s legal counsel and insurance provider, to address liability concerns for potential litigation related to accidents that occur on privately owned infrastructure on publicly owned waterfront land. When asked repeatedly, the Township was unable to supply examples of any previous litigation that may have occurred. Many of the families that are affected by this by-law are “generational”, those whose parents or grandparents owned the cottage prior to them. None of them can recall any lawsuits in the Township relating to this concern.
HC Voices has observed other townships using liability as the reason for creating related by-laws, such as the Road License Agreement in Lake of Bays that affects owners of private roads that cross over municipally owned lands. (This is another topic you will find under the “ISSUES” toggle at the top of our website.) We know that AH Council is aware of the Road License Agreement by-law and are watching it carefully. HC Voices will also continue to monitor this so people in AH will have a “VOICE” if they try to pass it here.
Another reason for passing the License of Occupation was on the advice of Algonquin Highlands’ town planner. He has stated that he cannot issue a building permit for infrastructure maintenance when the applicant does not own the property where the infrastructure resides. We have physical evidence from 2010 where a property owner was granted a building permit to build stairs and a deck on the adjacent “public” property. This building permit was debated and signed off by AH Council, which our current Mayor was a member of at the time.
The Mayor of AH has stated that the residents who are affected by this by-law do not pay their fair share of taxes, with no evidence to support this claim. According to Mayor Danielson, these individuals get the use of waterfront property for free, unlike direct waterfront property owners who pay a premium for lakefront property. Those of us who are affected have proven we do pay our fair share of taxes, since our MPAC assessment designates our properties as “lakefront with right of way access”. We were told by MPAC that these properties are assessed as waterfront but then given a slight discount because of the road between our properties and the lake. It was confirmed by the AH CAO that anyone signing the License of Occupation would be subject to a reassessment of their property by MPAC and would see a tax increase. With all the fees and costs associated with the License of Occupation, we would be paying more taxes than direct lakefront property owners with significantly more restrictions.
How much will this cost you?
Residents requiring a license must fill out an application. The application requires:
- A $750 application fee as per the Township’s Planning Fee By-Law
- A $500 annual fee
- A $2,500 deposit towards the legal fees related to processing the License of Occupation
- public liability insurance covering the encroachments, in the minimum amount of $2 million dollars
- Copy of applicant’s property deed
- Copy of the Reference Plan for the applicant’s property to determine lot line extension
- A detailed sketch or site plan
- Seasonal pictures of current shoreline vegetation
The license will remain in effect for 10 years, at which point the application process begins again. The shoreline area subject to a License of Occupation will be required to remain in a natural state except where permitted structures and pedestrian access are to be located. All pre-existing structures, as of the date of the by-law’s passing within the Township of Algonquin Highlands, shall be allowed to remain. Minor repairs to existing structures shall be permitted at the discretion of the Township’s Chief Building Official. Only stairs, docks and pump houses can be replaced but will require a building permit. All structures deemed to be unsafe will be required to be repaired or replaced at the discretion of the Township of Algonquin Highlands.
Your license can be REVOKED for the following reasons:
- Non-payment of annual fees
- Public liability insurance carried by the licensee being canceled
- Unauthorized construction of new structures
- Unauthorized alterations to existing structures
- Unauthorized alterations to vegetation
- Unauthorized alterations to the subject lands (grading, etc.)
- Contravention of the License of Occupation Agreement registered on title
- Contravention of Township By-laws (Noise, Clean and Clear, Zoning etc.
This list is intended to be used as a guide only and reasons for a License of Occupation to be terminated are not limited to what has been listed. The Township of Algonquin Highlands reserves the right to terminate a License of Occupation at its sole discretion. There will be no independent appeal process. If you have an issue, you must plead your case to Council and they will decide your fate!
If you sign this agreement you are effectively at the mercy of current and future councils in Algonquin Highlands!
What are you liable for?
“License Agreement holders will be required to deposit, with the Township, annually during the term of the agreement, a certificate of public liability insurance covering the encroachments, in the minimum amount of two million dollars ($2,000,000.00) with the Township and the applicant as the insured”.
The first question HC Voices asked of the town planner was what constitutes an “encroachment”. We assumed, based on the language of the agreement, that encroachments include the DOCKS, STAIRS and PUMP HOUSES but not any public property. We have asked AH Council and the Town Planner to clarify whether this agreement includes or excludes public property from its definition. It’s an important question to clarify because the license states the following:
“The Property owner agrees to indemnify and save harmless the Township from and against all actions, suits, claims, or demands of any nature of kind whatsoever arising out of or connected with this Encroachments Agreement”.
By signing the agreement with the above clause, you are fully liable for any litigation that could arise from use of these structures and/or public lands. We are unsure whether insurance companies will provide coverage for public property, so it’s imperative to know that your policy will cover you appropriately. To date the town has not responded to our concerns about this issue.
What actions has HC Voices taken so far?
1. Forming delegations to Council
Our first delegation to council was at the August 17th, 2023 council meeting which was 2 weeks after we found out about the License of Occupation from a local newspaper article. Our objective was to ask Council to “PAUSE” the signing of the by-law in order to discuss all of our questions and concerns. We were able to achieve the pause and submitted 49 questions gathered from many of the affected property owners. To our shock the town planner returned our questions with vague and non-detailed answers in as little as 2 days from submission. It became apparent that AH Council and the planner were simply trying to appease our request. They had little interest in trying to work with us or answer our questions. We made our second delegation on Oct 5th, 2023. Between delegations, we went back over 10 years of recorded council meetings (regular council meetings are recorded and available on YouTube) reviewing any previous discussions about the License of Occupation by-law.
The previous mayor, Carol Moffat, stated that the public will not be consulted and will have no input on this by-law. Council members all agreed that there would need to be extensive education for the public. One of our requests from the delegation of Oct 5th was for AH Council to fulfill their promise on educating the public. The Council agreed that this needed to be done but all they have provided are 8 questions and answers found on the Algonquin Highlands website. They have failed to answer our 49+ detailed questions in a way that would satisfy and inform the affected property owners.
2. Logan Percy’s initial investigation
After our first delegation to AH Council regarding the License of Occupation (LOO), Logan Percy began extensive research -looking for any information that would refute the by-law and Council’s claim to ownership of the land they were attempting to license. Logan asked affected neighbors to send him their surveys and property documents. He proceeded to go through the online land registry, various mapping programs (GIS, MNR, ONLAND, Google earth, etc) as well as old maps and surveys from the past, looking for clues. Halls Lake and other lakes with current dams in place were known to be flooded but property information and shore road allowances show very “bizarre discrepancies”. On Maple Lake, without a current dam, it was harder to identify the anomalies but the deed and survey of a property on North Shore Road showed the original shoreline was 40 feet from the current shoreline. All of this was summarized in a report shared with a surveyor who recommended researching the original Stanhope survey and survey notes. Many more irregularities were discovered, such as a road allowance that today intersects a point of land at Walls Lane on Maple Lake that didn’t touch that point of land in the 1860 survey. New information was given to the surveyor who immediately identified various other discrepancies in lot sizes, lot line lengths, road allowance sizes and locations.
All of this points to the real possibility that current shoreline road allowances are not where they were originally supposed to be and that the original shoreline road allowance is under water. Evidence has been found that the outlet of Maple Lake was altered by filling it with rocks to allow for a shorter St. Peter’s bridge. There is documented flooding of upstream and downstream lakes, shorelines that are not where they were in the 1800’s and many other provable facts. All of this contradicting information requires in-depth analysis to uncover the truth. The investigation is still on-going.
3. Consulting a Lawyer
HC Voices met with a lawyer who reviewed the License of Occupation and gave us some direction and options for dealing with it.
- Form delegations – we made 2 delegations to Council before the by-law was passed.
- Lawyer to lawyer communication, without involving the courts, asking for clarification on the validity of the township’s liability concerns.
- Submit investigative inquiries to the Ontario Land Tribunal, Integrity Commissioner, Ombudsman, Minister of Affairs & Housing, etc. After our delegations, these other options were researched and quickly rejected as not effective for our situation.
- Dialogue with Councilors on our viewed concerns with the License of Occupation and any research we feel is relevant to its merits. It only takes 1 Councilor to request that a passed by-law be brought back for further discussion and a possible re-vote by Council.
- Quash the by-law – we believe Townships are cleverly using a variety of licensing to avoid some of the requirements needed to quash a by-law under the Planning Act. The lawyer stated that any attempt to quash a by-law due to violation of various Acts, using the court system, would prove very time consuming, costly, and have limited effectiveness.
- Continue open dialogue with Council, with in-person and written communications, about modifying the by-law to make it more reasonable.
- Replace Council members through the election process and repeal unreasonable and ineffective by-laws. Both full-time and part-time residents are eligible to vote and run for Council
- As a last resort, take the township to court. The lawyer specifically said that the burden of proof of ownership resides with us and not the Township. We were warned that this can be a costly and time-consuming process which we should avoid if possible.
4. Requesting proof of ownership
On January 1st, 2024 HC Voices asked a group of affected property owners to submit a form letter to the Township asking for proof of ownership of the land that the town was requesting them to license. This was a reasonable attempt to have the Township prove that they in fact have legal title to the land over which they were asking us to sign a legally binding contract, with many restrictive conditions and costs. The Township responded that the land is part of the shore road allowance and it is their legal opinion that they own it. Through extensive research by HC Voices, we have come to believe that the surrounding lakes were dammed and flooded to facilitate logging operations in the 1800s. The original shore road allowance is actually under water and the road that the town claims to be municipal is in fact a “Forced Road”. Most recent surveys would support the Township’s position but earlier surveys prior to the flooding would not. AH Council’s position is that the burden of proof lies with the affected landowners and not the Township itself.
5. Surveying affected properties
HC Voices has hired a surveyor to survey Maple Lake to verify that the lake was flooded, that the original shore road allowance is in fact under water and that North Shore Road is a forced road. The surveyor report will determine the validity of the Township’s ownership claim. This process is ongoing.
6. Continuing to work with our Councilors
HC Voices continues to work with our Councilors on this and other issues. It is clear that Council members rely heavily on Algonquin Highlands staff for information to make informed decisions about any proposed by-laws. By working with our Councilors, we can hopefully get the public viewpoint injected into the process.
7. Engaging with other groups
HC Voices is engaging with other groups in Algonquin Highlands. We have been coordinating efforts between the Maple Lake group and the Halls Lake group about the License of Occupation. We have established a coordinated effort with the Short-Term Rental group who are also affected by the License of Occupation. We are currently following the Lake of Bays group who are engaged with their township about the “Road License Agreement”. This currently does not affect Algonquin Highlands residents but could do so in the future. We are aware that our Council has informally looked at this by-law and is watching the Lake of Bays implementation of it. This by-law could have devastating effects for owners of private roads that are crossing municipal property. We are also engaged with a group from Dysart et al about the “Septic Re-inspection Process.”
8. Attending regular council meetings
HC Voices is committed to staying abreast of any newly proposed by-laws by regularly attending public council meetings, viewing meetings online and reviewing published documents. We want our Council members to know that we are watching them and that they will be held accountable for their actions. We hope to prevent others from being surprised by any newly proposed legislation that may adversely affect them. It’s about establishing and maintaining a “VOICE” in our municipal politics

What you can do is KEEP INFORMED!
We strongly suggest you sign up using our CONTACT FORM to receive information about what our municipal government is proposing. Don’t be caught off guard! Connect with others in your community and benefit from their experience. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER and being informed is the best weapon to ensure your peace of mind. What we have discovered while attempting to work with the Township is that municipalities prefer to deal with us as individuals. We are easier to control and contain as individuals. What we have learned is that there is “STRENGTH IN NUMBERS”. The important thing is to understand who you are aligning with and what they stand for. HC Voices has distanced ourselves from any individuals who pursue confrontation, civil disobedience and legal threats to achieve their goals. These types of actions will isolate you from the Township and it’s councillors on this and any future issues you may have. We prefer to exhaust all avenues to resolve an issue before letting the courts decide the outcome. We are committed to finding the best possible solution for the issues that are affecting our communities.