Nellie Lunn Park – The Encroachment Story

2026.10.17

Summary/TLDR as they say on the internet (Too Long Didn’t Read)

• The Park Access Trail was there before the adjacent landowners bought their properties,

• As a gesture of goodwill, the Township surveyed the road allowance,

• The few encroachments that were identified amounted to at most a few feet over distances of tens of feet on land that amounted to over 100 acres,

• Where these few encroachments were found, the Township took steps to address them.

The Long(er) Version

Nellie Lunn Park was donated to the people of Wollaston long before any of the adjacent landowners bought their properties.

At the time that the sale of the park was being pursued by a previous Council, a claim started circulating that the Park Access Trail used to access Nellie Lunn Park encroached on the adjacent land.

The lack of a survey or any other evidence to support the claim did not keep it from getting traction in certain quarters.

After the sale had been ruled unlawful by the courts, and after discussion with adjacent landowners, then Deputy Mayor Paul Ordanis recommended that a survey be done.  This was intended as a gesture of good will and a means to addressing those claims.  Council agreed and paid for a survey.

The surveyor’s marks identified a couple of locations where the trail came close to the boundary of the road allowance, and a deadfall/brush boundary was put in place to prevent visitors from straying onto the neighbouring land.

One of the adjacent landowners then commissioned the surveyor to do a more detailed analysis of specific small sections of the Park Access Trail.  This resulted in the placement of additional marks on the trail.  In one location the trail was moved several feet to rectify the encroachment.  In another location the surveyor identified an encroachment of a trail that had already been decommissioned. This generated some confusion and so the Township asked the surveyor to walk the trail to explain the encroachment.  During that walk, it became clear that the surveyor had been identifying a trail that no longer was in use.  During this process, the surveyor decided to do another examination of a section of the trail and added new marks.  This brought that section of the trail close to the boundary of the road allowance.  Rather than simply create a barrier resulting in a narrow path, a plan was developed to reroute the trail.  This process was under way when discussions with Kawartha Land Trust became more concrete, and it made sense to wait until those discussions concluded before making any changes to trails.

This is where we find ourselves today.

If you would like a response to a particular question, please send it to me at jd@jd4Wollaston.ca.  I’ll be posting in several Facebook groups along with my webpage www.jd4Wollaston.ca so unless you send it to me directly, it may get missed.