Planning for growing communities

More housing, new approaches to rural servicing, responsible development, and protecting what makes Frontenac a place people want to call home.

Making room for more homes

From 2023 through 2025, eligible residential building permits represented 443 dwelling units, while planning approvals created 117 new residential lots through consents. Not every permit or new lot represents a completed home today, but each indicates additional new housing capacity across Frontenac.

Frontenac County planners work with township staff, property owners, builders, developers, agencies, and residents as proposals move through the planning process. Their work helps balance the need for more housing with the protection of the rural landscapes, natural resources, and communities that make Frontenac a desirable place to live.

New, right-sized options for rural development

In rural communities, providing water and wastewater services traditionally means choosing between prohibitively expensive municipal systems and well-and-septic systems. Council and staff see another option for our towns and hamlets.

Communal systems are a way to bridge the cost and efficiency gap between expensive traditional municipal treatment systems and individual well-and-septic systems. Shared systems can serve multiple properties. Professional operators oversee those systems over the long term. Although communities around the world use communal systems, Ontario municipalities do not yet use them widely as an alternative to traditional municipal systems. Frontenac councillors and staff are pioneering their application in rural Ontario.

Council supported the governance, planning, and advocacy work needed to move this approach forward. In 2023, the County and Frontenac’s four townships established Frontenac Municipal Services, which provides policy, advocacy, and operational frameworks for communal systems.

The benefits extend beyond water and wastewater. Communal servicing can give municipalities, builders, and landowners more options for development, support additional housing choices, use land more efficiently, help communities grow within villages and hamlets, and provide professional long-term oversight of shared infrastructure.

From an idea to bricks and mortar

Councillors and Frontenac Municipal Services staff present land parcels in Verona, Marysville, and Sharbot Lake as ready opportunities where communal servicing could expand development and housing options in rural settlement areas.

Verona is furthest advanced. The Township of South Frontenac secured $3.2 million in provincial Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund support for communal servicing associated with a mixed-housing development of approximately 100 units.

At the former Sharbot Lake Public School property in Sharbot Lake, councillors and staff see an opportunity for infill and mixed-use development close to main street.

On Wolfe Island, the Province’s investment in the new ferry and terminals, together with new year-round direct service between Marysville and Kingston, creates new opportunities for growth and development in Marysville. Councillors and staff are working with the Township of Frontenac Islands and provincial partners as they plan for that inevitable growth.

Protecting what people value

Growth implies important choices about where development should happen and what lands need protection.

Council approved updated Environmental Impact Study guidelines, supported new floodplain mapping, and advanced a Natural Heritage Study. Planners use this work alongside provincial policy and other planning tools when they assess development proposals.

Council and township partners are exploring new tools such as a Community Planning Permit System, which will combine and streamline elements of zoning, site-plan control, and minor variances at shorelines while keeping clear and sensible requirements for development.

Councillors and staff advocate to reform provincial planning and approval processes that allow municipalities, builders, and landowners to move appropriate development forward without unnecessary complexity or delay.

The objective is not simply more development. It is to give communities room to grow while considering water, infrastructure, natural heritage, flood risk, and the characteristics that make rural Frontenac an attractive place to live and do business.

Growth supports our rural economy

More residents and visitors create opportunities and needs for businesses and communities. Council supported various economic development initiatives during the term.

Recreational infrastructure brings people into Frontenac’s communities. Council continued investing in completion of the Frontenac K&P Trail, including the Elbow Creek Bridge, Snow Road Station lands, and improvements at the Sharbot Lake trailhead and accessible washroom. County economic development staff estimate142,378 visits to the Frontenac K&P Trail in 2025 and estimate trail visitors generated $1.81 million in direct visitor spending that year. For perspective, Council authorized almost $2 million in K&P Trail capital work during the term, including trail additions, trail improvements, and the Elbow Creek Bridge replacement.

Council also committed up to $258,000 to phase-in an additional Community Development Officer staff position to expand capacity for business support, tourism, investment attraction, and workforce development.

Staff work directly with entrepreneurs and business operators. The 2025 Economic Development annual report provides the clearest measurable snapshot of this direct support: Staff recorded 242 tracked business interactions and visited 36 businesses.

What comes next

Many of the most consequential growth decisions still lie ahead. Councillors will continue making decisions about major development proposals, communal servicing, village and hamlet growth, natural heritage protection, and the infrastructure communities need as Frontenac grows.

Frontenac County Planning and Development • Frontenac Municipal Services • Community Planning Permit System • Natural Heritage Study • Frontenac K&P Trail • Economic Development • Back to County Council Progress and Priorities