Algonquin Adventures / cottage lease increases, causes people to walk?

**Posted by swedish pimple** 2/11/2021 11:32 pm

the new yearly cottage lease program has really increased the rates.
to the point that some cottagers simply cannot justify the new sliding upwards yearly totals,, some lease holders are trying to sell out or just simply walking away from the properties. pity
kinda makes me wonder how the park will try and make up for that lost revenue???
does anyone have any insights on this ??? maybe that is why there is talk of a interior permit will be based on 4 people flat rate,,

**Posted by Jdbonney** 2/12/2021 7:13 am

I did read that big increases were coming and noticed more cottages for sale than usual but I haven’t seen anything in the news about it recently.

**Posted by MartinG** 2/12/2021 7:14 am

I don't think the two things are connected. The cottage lease rates needed to go up. It's shocking they were as low as they were for so many years. They have increased to put them in line with market rates Muskoka.

**Posted by Jdbonney** 2/12/2021 3:55 pm

Did a few searches today to try to find the new lease rates but can’t find anything definitive. The auditor general recommended a big jump in rates but I can’t fine what they actually went up to.

I wouldn’t be sad to see them phased out completely.

**Posted by Rob** 2/12/2021 7:38 pm

swedish pimple wrote:
kinda makes me wonder how the park will try and make up for that lost revenue??

Not positive here but I believe the land lease fees are not paid to or credited to Ontario Parks but go to some other level of Government. Can anyone confirm this?

**Posted by Jdbonney** 2/12/2021 8:26 pm

So in my reading today I did find that the leases are made up of a few different payments.
1) fees for road maintenance and garbage pickup to Ontario parks
2) lease fees to Ontario parks
3) payment in lieu of taxes(pilts) which are transferred to the local municipalities for services provided to the cottages.

Based on the AG report the total fees were basically set to quadruple between 2018 and 2023. So if even 75% of cottagers walk away and give up their leases the remaining payees will still give Ontario parks the same payments or close to. I didn’t find our average fees but I get the impression that the vast majority of lease holders were going to continue paying and using their cottages.

**Posted by Rob** 2/12/2021 10:44 pm

Jd thanks for looking that up. I stand corrected.

**Posted by yellowcanoe** 2/13/2021 1:08 pm

There were a few Algonquin cottage leases for sale on the realtor.ca site last summer and I expect there will be more for sale this year. While I am not wildly enthusiastic about the higher annual lease fees, I might be tempted if one became available on one of the northern lakes.

**Posted by nvm** 2/13/2021 11:11 pm

What’s the ballpark lease fee cost?

**Posted by AlgonquinLakes** 2/14/2021 7:57 am

I think I’ve mentioned in the past that my in-laws have a lease on Canoe Lake. It’s true the costs have gone up quite a bit and it’s also true this forcing some cottagers to sell their lease. I don’t think the talk of raising permit rates is connected though, so far there’s usually been someone willing to buy the lease so the lease fees are still getting paid.

**Posted by Jdbonney** 2/14/2021 9:03 am

I think as long as they are available for sale there will be a willing buyer. Particularly now with the cost of leases going way up the likelihood of further extensions is pretty good. As the lease fees rise the government will become more and more hooked on the income from the leases.

**Posted by RobW** 2/18/2021 9:28 am

As others have said, the increase in lease fees is bringing them in line with the real estate market surrounding the park. That does indeed result in some really big increases which won't be manageable for some folks or won't be worth the increased cost for some other folks.

It sucks for the people who have to make hard decisions about properties that have been part of their family, potentially for generations.

**Posted by Algonquintripper** 2/18/2021 11:27 am

What wasn’t the initial arrangement with these cottages at the time the park was formed?
Was there an initial financial compensation at the time as well as the creation of the lease system?

**Posted by yellowcanoe** 2/18/2021 11:48 am

RobW wrote:
As others have said, the increase in lease fees is bringing them in line with the real estate market surrounding the park. That does indeed result in some really big increases which won't be manageable for some folks or won't be worth the increased cost for some other folks.

It sucks for the people who have to make hard decisions about properties that have been part of their family, potentially for generations.

Yes, I can well understand that families that have had a cabin in Algonquin Park for generations don't want to give that up. MNR had decided in the 50's that having leaseholder cabins in provincial parks was not a good thing and that the leases should be allowed to expire. Given the growing demand for destination canoe camping, being able to create interior campsites on easily accessible lakes such as Canoe, Smoke and Cache would have been a good thing. The leaseholders did an amazing job of first convincing the government to extend all the leases to 2017 and then the new extension. However, the increase in the annual fees means that over time the leases will increasingly be owned by people who have a lot of money and less and less by families that have had the lease for generations.

Last edited by yellowcanoe (2/18/2021 11:49 am)

**Posted by MartinG** 2/18/2021 11:54 am

The first leases in the park were private individuals leasing cottages that had been built by the lumber companies on Canoe Lake and Brule lake. It osrt of grew from there. In the early days of the park they were promoting it as a tourist attraction and encouraged the development of hotels, camps and private leases. It would have been a pretty cool time to be in the park. It wasn't until much later that the idea of returning the park to it's natural state took hold. For the last 70 years or so they have been waffling about with that.

**Posted by ShawnD** 2/18/2021 1:58 pm

I could be wrong but at one point I thought the plan was for the government to buy anything that came up for sale. Slowly removing all leaseholds from the lakes.

Last edited by ShawnD (2/18/2021 1:58 pm)

**Posted by yellowcanoe** 2/18/2021 2:24 pm

ShawnD wrote:
I could be wrong but at one point I thought the plan was for the government to buy anything that came up for sale. Slowly removing all leaseholds from the lakes.

The new leases give the government the right of first refusal so yes they do have the option to purchase properties that are being sold. However, this requires MNR to have a budget for these purchases and I don't see any evidence that they do. The original plan to simply allow leases to expire would have resulted in lease holders losing the value of all the improvements they had made to the property, other than what they could transport away at the end of the lease. Assuming the leases continue to be extended (a highly likely scenario) a lease cannot be extinguished without the lease holder receiving fair market value for their property.

In the early 80's there were still a few houses and a school at Kiosk, a remnant of what had been a thriving mill town prior to the destruction of the mill by fire in I think it was 1968. MNR didn't want to have a town in the park so all those buildings are now gone.

Last edited by yellowcanoe (2/18/2021 2:28 pm)