By IAN ROSS
Techno Logic Timber, a Thunder Bay forestry company, wants to get into the cottage lot business.
The experienced logging and chipping contractor answered the Ministry of Natural Resources’ call to convert undeveloped Crown land in the Atikokan area into a cottage subdivision on two lakes.
It’s new ground for the company to venture on, but not too much of a stretch.
The company has chosen two of the three lakes made available by the Ministry of Natural Resources. They have their sights set on Plateau and Lerome for a cottage development of roughly 100 cottage lots.
“We’re a company with 40 years experience in the industry,” says forester Al Plourde. “We’re experts at many facets of this project.”
The company had done some small-scale lot development on private land and are familiar with the province’s environmental assessment procedures. As well, they’ve carved out hundreds of kilometres of bush road and have people trained in wildlife management work.
The municipality wants the economic spinoffs from seasonal residents, but didn’t want to take on the development responsibilities.
“It’s a good really thing for Atikokan, especially with mills (closing) and the logging the way it is,” says company vice-president Mark Mrakic. “Hopefully we can work together and stimulate some revenue there.”
Techno Logic was selected last summer from eight applicants to map out a conceptual plan for subdivisions within the township limits.
The MNR, which crafted a special development model, will be overseeing the draft plan since there’s strict environmental regulations in place regarding development next ecologically sensitive areas.
“It’s a new and innovative way to develop Crown land,” says Plourde.
The rules of the process “are pretty new to us” says Mrakic who was preparing to submit their conceptual subdivision plan to the MNR for approval at the end of November.
Other ministries including Municipal Affairs and Environment will also have a say regarding how many lots each lake can sustain based on phosphorous levels.
Should their draft plan get approved, Mrakic says they’ll assess if the economics look right and if there’s consumer demand, before proceeding to second stage final subdivision plan.
“If it works out and it’s viable, it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep this going.”
His company would become both developer and realtor for the project.
Atikokan is more than a two-hour drive from the U.S. border and about six to seven hours from Minneapolis.
Although the company hasn’t been extensively marketing their planned development, based on feedback from a cottage hotline (807-629-lots ), people want bigger lots with road access and power, says Mrakic.
Many of those suggestions are written into the draft plan.
The lots will be a mix of minimum one-acre lots to “estate-sized” holdings of more than three acres.
Since the company’s biggest costs will be road construction and extending hydro lines seven kilometres into the lakes, Mrakic says most certainly they’ll need outside financing.
“The hardest thing for us is not knowing that the raw land value is going to be,” says Mrakic. “We’re going into that blind.”
Gary Davies, an MNR land use specialist in Thunder Bay, says based on the vacant blocks of land the company identifies, the raw land value will be assessed by an independent appraiser. “They’ll need to know that to do their math to be able to see if it’s worth proceeding.”
Any Crown wood cleared and harvested will have provincial stumpage fees applied.
