New villages are sprouting in the northern Ontario wilderness and the province says it’s keeping tabs on them | CBC News

Provincial inspectors have visited some of the controversial off-grid communities being built in the northern Ontario wilderness.

And at least one of these new villages welcomes the government oversight.

“I’m feeling great about it,” said Tanner Demers, one of the 160 members of the Swan Lake community, not too far from Kirkland Lake. 

“The government has been nothing but helpful to us, because they just provide us with more information about how we can move forward with the project.”

Several of these new communities were marketed in recent years under the name “medieval villages,” promising a low cost building lot on a piece of bush land in an unincorporated township, outside of a city or town, and outside of municipal planning rules.

There is a community known as Longview near the existing village of Charlton and plans for an off-grid waterfront development on Lake Kenogami.

These wilderness developments raised concerns from neighbouring municipalities, worried about the impact this could have on the environment, as well as already strained local services such as health care and landfills.

They called on the provincial government to take action and this summer and fall, officials from the ministries of environment, as well as municipal affairs and housing, did several site visits.

Demers described the visits to Swan Lake, currently a collection of about a dozen cabins and trailers with only a handful of full-time residents, as “preliminary.”

He says testing has been done of the ground and surface waters near the community, plus discussion about long term plans for wells and wastewater treatment.

Demers, who sits on the Swan Lake association as secretary/treasurer, says they also discussed the change in provincial law that took effect last month, enabling the building code to be enforced in areas outside of municipal boundaries, already home to hundreds of people across northern Ontario. 

“Having some enforcement of the building code is only going to provide us with safer dwellings, safer structures for communities, not even just for our project, but for all unorganized areas,” he said.

The Ontario government did not make anyone available for an interview, but provided the following statement:

“The province remains concerned about off-grid communities in unincorporated areas and the potential for them to be unsafe for the inhabitants and place significant pressure on neighbouring municipalities as well as the environment,” the statement reads.

“To date, provincial inspectors have undertaken some initial environmental compliance site visits and have provided guidance to owners on provincial environmental requirements. Additional building code compliance site inspections are anticipated.”