Two Acres to be more specific.
My wife and I own 35.5 Acres in Rural Ottawa and a small section of our property, not much more than 2 acres in size, would make a wonderful building lot – at least on paper. It is located on the extreme north-west end of our holdings, bordered by a creek and invisible from the balance of our property. An ideal spot for a home.
I checked the Zoning and yes, our property qualified for a severance of 2 acres as long as the remainder contained at least 25 acres. So I did the math – 35.5 acres minus the 2 acres to be severed, leaves 33.5 acres remaining. Slam Dunk.
So I went to review this with the City Planners just to be sure I had not missed anything.
- Do you have at least 27 acres? “Yes I do – I have 37.5”
- Is there a road? “Why yes, how else would a buyer gain access to their new home”?
- Well you have to factor in a set-back from the road.
- Is there a creek? “Why yes there is – why do you ask”?
- Another set-back.
- A barn – do you have a barn? “An old log barn not in use – don’t tell me this requires another set-back”?
- It sure does.
What started out as a small severance of but 2 acres had now swelled to between 9 and 10 acres in size. The good news was that I still retained at least 25 acres – just, that is – so a Severance was still doable.
How much, I asked?
‘The application fee to the city is only $2,000 – you are lucky – it would cost you more if you lived in the city proper. I felt most fortunate.
That is until the Conservation Chaps came out to our property to review our plans given that a creek – one that nearly dries up in summer – was involved.
“You’ll need a bridge” they said. “At what cost” I asked – up to $50,000. “Wow” I said.
In spite of this, we went ahead with the application.
It was at this point that a few other costs were disclosed to us:
- The lands – both severed and retained would have to be surveyed – $5to $6 thousand – Ka-ching;
- Parkland would need to be dedicated to the City – “Park Land” I asked? “The property is not big enough to dedicate parkland”. No problem, I was told, just pay $4,000+ in lieu of actual parkland. Ka-ching
- Oh and by the way, you must prepare an Environment Impact Statement because of the “significant valleylands". “What significant valleylands” I enquired – “our property is flat”. “Our maps show that valleylands exist and accordingly you will need to have an EIS – prepared – bureaucrats love initials. “How much will this cost, I asked?” “You will have to make your own arrangements with an independent professional”. Ka-ching
- And the folks from Conservation returned – “we need a plan of your proposed bridge prepared before we will okay your severance application”. My pleading with them that I had no idea what the bridge would look like fell on deaf ears. From my perspective – the bridge design would and should be determined at a future date by whomever purchased the lot and would be building on it. I considered getting the plans for the Brooklyn Bridge and submitting those to them but thought better of it. Ka-ching
- Plus a well needs to be drilled in advance. “Where exactly would I put such a well considering the fact that severance approval was not guaranteed, and even if it was, I had no idea where a family home would eventually be built. “Good points” – however…. Ka-ching
- It was at this point that I contacted our family lawyer since he would have to prepare the legal papers should the severance go through – another Ka-ching. It was during this meeting that he advised me that upon selling the severed lot, we would be responsible for paying Capital Gains Tax to the Government and possibly – HST to the Province – Ka-ching, Ka-ching.
- He also advised that if we or whomever were to build on the severed lot, there would be Building Permit Fees payable of around $20,000. Ka-ching.
I figure if we were able to sell this 9 – 10 acre lot – assuming of course that we were eventually successful in obtaining severance approval – we’d need to sell it for something approaching $1 million if only to breakeven.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher”
