Community News

During the AGM (August 12th, 2025), an update on the state of the Mallory Beach Roadwork project was provided. The summary below was written and provided by the Town of South Bruce Peninsula, outlining the key points discussed at the AGM. Design summary: *Generally, the road will be super-elevated to permit surface water to cross. (like Lakeshore Blvd in Sauble) *Culverts and ditches will remain, or be expanded in areas of concentrated/higher incoming water. *By super-elevating the road, if the capacity of culverts is exceeded (or frozen or blocked), water will be able to flow across the road instead of getting trapped on the escarpment/bluff side as it currently does in many places. *Most of the road will follow the current horizontal and vertical alignment. *Concentrated areas of redesign will be where there are significant hills/sags in the same location as bends. These are all addressed according to each individual location. *Generally this is some horizontal shifting and then some cut/fill to smooth the hills/sags. *Some targeted road base and drainage improvements where the base is saturated. *No significant lane width widening but aiming to establish proper shoulders. *3m is generally considered the "clear zone" from a roadside safety perspective so trees will be removed in that buffer if in the road allowance. No private above ground encroachments will be permitted in the road allowance in the 3m clear zone. Scheduling: *Unfortunately while completing a review this summer, we discovered quite a few culverts that were not previously identified. Also identified some saturated areas that were not previously flagged as a concern. *Some redesign is being completed to address these changes but this has caused somewhat of a delay to get these completed before an information meeting is held. *We are still hoping to possibly tender this fall so that some pre-excavation work can take place. Examples include: hydro pole relocation, tree removals/trimming, ditching/culvert replacements and cleaning. *Aiming to have some of this work done before next spring so that road pulverization and work can begin ASAP in the spring. By accomplishing some of the other work before pulverizing, it will minimize the amount of time the road is left with a gravel surface. Encroachments: *We have developed a flow chart that will be released at the information session, we are offering to coordinate drawings for simple encroachments (more clearly defined at the info session) from the project engineers at a lower cost. We need a drawing to show the encroachment to be able to register it. *Owners would need to be able to identify their underground utility (e.g. water line) so that the engineers could gather this location information and then we would coordinate the drawing to be completed at a lower cost than each property owner sourcing their own surveyor. This would not work for complex agreements *While we want to leave water lines that are fine (depth etc.), we may not be able to do that everywhere, or simply some residents may know the line is old and want to upgrade. We are planning to offer conduits, at a cost, that would then be available for a homeowners use. These would then still be registered as an encroachment for the property so that we can locate them and manage them going forward. *We would not be relocating the actual water (or other utility) lines and homeowners would be responsible for that work. *This will all be explained in further detail during the information session. In addition to the above information, the Town also briefly reported on the Universal Broadband Fund, indicating that fibre is expected by the end of December 2025, however no further information was available.