Ormstown buys into three private lots to loop the water main

Council approved three negotiated acquisitions on Cullen and Oliver — two servitudes and one strip of land — so the water network in that sector stops dead-ending.

Ormstown council approved three negotiated land acquisitions at its ordinary sitting of 6 October 2026, all of them tied to the reconstruction already under way on rues Prince-Albert, Cullen and Oliver. Two are servitudes across private lots; the third is the outright purchase of part of a lot. Together they are the clearest picture yet of what the borrowing by-law behind this project is buying on the ground — and of what the municipality is now paying private owners for.

Why the servitudes exist

Presiding from the chair, the mayor explained that the street layout in that sector works like a fishbone: the streets are dead ends, and the water main simply closes off at the end of each one. Water that has nowhere to go sits still, and that is a water-quality problem. Running new pipe across the back of private lots lets the municipality close the circuit — what the trade calls a bouclage, a loop — so water keeps circulating instead of stopping at the end of the pipe (00:58:00). To do that, the municipality has to negotiate a right of passage with the owners whose land the new pipe crosses.

The three acquisitions

The first, at 28 rue Cullen, is a passage and public-utility servitude over lot 5 807 233, for $15,000. Council accepted a promise of cession signed by the owner on 25 September 2026, mandated a notary and a land surveyor to complete it, and authorized the mayor or the director general to sign the notarial deed (00:58:50, 00:59:38).

The second, at 1012 rue Oliver, is the same instrument over lot 5 807 239 — but with a different kind of price attached. Rather than a cash payment, the municipality undertakes to carry out, at its own expense, the connection of the building to the municipal water and sewer networks, and the removal of the septic installation currently on the lot. The chair put the value of that work at $18,650, on a promise of cession dated 3 September 2026 (00:59:38, 01:00:26).

The third is a purchase, not a servitude: part of a lot on rue Oliver, for $11,300 plus applicable taxes, on a promise of sale dated 29 September 2026. It buys a vehicle turnaround. The chair explained that a turnaround lets large vehicles — garbage and recycling trucks, fire apparatus, eventually ambulances — reverse direction safely at the end of the street, and said the point of handling these details now is that they are what will make the finished works usable and safe (01:01:11, 01:01:57, 01:02:44).

Only the first two appear on the published agenda, as items 9.3 and 9.4, with their lot numbers. The turnaround purchase was added from the chair at the start of the sitting and is not in the published document (00:31:25). Residents reading the agenda beforehand therefore had no notice of the third acquisition. All three were put to a proposer and seconder and the chair recorded no vote against; the resolution numbers and the final wording will be confirmed in the minutes.

What it attaches to

These are small amounts against the size of the project. By-law 173-2026, adopted in June 2026, borrows $4,800,000 over 40 years for the Prince-Albert, Cullen and Oliver works, and the construction contract went to Ali Excavation at $4,136,554.78 taxes included — figures the Observer took from the adopted minutes in its earlier coverage of the two borrowing by-laws totalling $11.2 million. The servitudes are what makes that $4.8 million produce a looped network rather than three more dead ends.

Work on Cullen and Oliver started on Monday 28 September 2026 and is running on both streets at once, according to the municipality’s Info-travaux notice no. 5. The detour was moved at that point: it now runs along the private farm road at the end of rue Prince-Albert rather than along rue Oliver, with a 30 km/h maximum. Notice no. 4, issued 8 September, had routed it over the bike path and rue Liggett.

What you can do

If your property is being crossed, connected or disconnected during these works, the 1012 rue Oliver resolution is worth knowing about before you sign anything: there, the municipality agreed to pay for the connection to the water and sewer networks and to remove the existing septic installation. Asking in writing what the municipality will take on at its own cost is a reasonable question, and the answer at one address is a useful benchmark at the next.

The minutes of the 6 October sitting, once published, will carry the resolution numbers, the exact amounts and the lot descriptions for all three acquisitions.