The Town of Brome Lake announced at its most recent council meeting that the Mill Pond Dam project will officially wrap up at the end of March. 

The municipality has been discussing the Mill Pond Dam project for about a decade and it became a part of the current council’s strategic plan for 2015-2020. It is the first step in the municipality’s attempt to revitalize Knowlton’s downtown core, which includes expanding Pettes Memorial Library and making changes to Coldbrook Park. 

The municipality officially gave out the contract to completely rebuild the dam in 2019, but it didn’t receive its certification of authorization from the Ministry of Environment until 2021. 

The original end date for the Mill Pond Dam project was the end of December 2022, but it faced some setbacks due to weather conditions.

In addition to the Mill Pond Dam project, the March 6 council meeting saw the adoption of a new administrative by-law for short-term rentals, the hiring of two new town employees, and the introduction of a provincial bill that gives towns and cities “the right to first refusal” on properties that interest them when they come up for sale. 

“In 2011, with the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, the dam was damaged badly. It was reinforced at the time, but they took out all of the bores that were holding the water. When the water got too high, they would take bores out to empty it. The water went down to the lowest level it had ever been,” said Burcombe. 

When the current administration was sworn in in 2013, it decided to go ahead with the project.

“We sent out the contenders. (…) Of course, Covid arrived and we were waiting for the certificate of authorization (CA) from the Ministry of Environment to start the work. We waited approximately two years for that due to a slow down in the Ministry of Environment, with the engineers also, with Covid, with everything combined. Finally, we got the CA last September and they started to work,” said Burcombe. 

In October however, the Mill Pond Dam project experienced a wipeout. 

“They had some bad luck of course. Where they were forming and everything, it washed away with all of the big heavy rain that we had. They basically had to start all over again,” explained Burcombe. “They were two-and-a-half months behind right there. During the winter they kept working at and finally it’s going to be finished for March 31. Then the water will rise quickly, the water should be back to the level that it was in the 2000s.”

Burcombe noted that the delay will not result in additional costs for the project. 

“It wasn’t the fault of the town. That’s part of the job and part of the contract,” he said. 

Once the Mill Pond Dam project is complete, the focus shifts to Coldbrook Park. 

“We have the public place to red-do, that’s in the contract also for them to put it back the way it was. Then we’re going to combine the new public place, the park, with the enlarging of the library. We’re going to combine it all together to make a nice place for people to congregate. The council in power now has two-and-half years to complete that by November 2025. Hopefully we are able to do that,” Burcombe highlighted. 

The Mill Pond Dam project was one of many items on the agenda at last week’s council meeting. 

Town council officially adopted an administrative by-law that allows people across Brome Lake to rent out their principal residences on a short-term basis.

The decision comes after the Quebec government announced that it was replacing the “Act Respecting Tourist Accommodation Establishments” with the “Quebec Government's Tourist Accommodation Act.” The new act allows all Quebecers to offer short-term accommodation in their principal residence unless a municipality has banned short-term rentals or has its own measures set in place. Municipalities were given until March 25 to make a decision.

“We put in an administrative by-law where they would have to have a permit (from the town) to rent out principal residences. That way we have more ways of controlling and regulating the principal residences. (…) I don’t know of anybody that do short-term rentals for principal residences. It’s the secondary ones, the people from outside or even in the Town of Brome Lake, that buy another house to make money off of it. (…) That is where the problem is,” noted Burcombe. 

Burcombe continued to explain that there are three commercial sectors in Brome Lake consisting of 16 zones: one in the centre of Knowlton, one in Foster, and one in West Brome. 

“Now these people are allowed to rent out because it’s touristic and there are hotels. (…) Outside of these zones it is prohibited for secondary residences to do short-term rentals. There are 24 residences that we know of that do it outside of the zones that are allowed. Consequently, one is a problem. Other than that, we’ve had no problems with short-term rentals of secondary homes. It’s a fuss over one problem, which we’re going to look into how to solve it, and we will go from there. That’s where we are right now,” he said. 

Editor’s note: CIDI has learned that co-founding member of Vigilance Lac-Brome Benoit Bourgon is suing the municipality over its proposed by-law. The station reached out to Bourgon for comment.

For the full wrap-up on the March 6 town council meeting, listen to the interview below: