CHATHAM-KENT, ONT. -- Residents on Erie Shore Drive were given a week's notice to pack up their belongings and move, after municipality declared a state of emergency the first week of March.
Trevor Dixon owns two properties on Erie Shore Drive and is now forced to rent a third home.
“That’s the kicker, I pay two mortgages and pay rent on another one.”
Dixon was one of 80 residents who were forced to abandon their properties.
“Imagine winning the lottery $50 million,” Dixon says, "and then imagine the exact opposite and times it by two.”
CTV News spoke with Chatham-Kent Councillor Trevor Thompson, about the contingency plan that the municipality is working on.
“I don’t have that much concrete information as of now. Are we going to completely repair the dike? What are the next steps?”
Thompson adds, “Where is the funding going to come from? And I am Afraid that’s kind of what the new wrinkle with coronavirus is going to be.,”
Thompson says security will be monitoring the shoreline to prevent break-ins.
Dixon wants to know who is on the hook, when it comes to property damages.
“Landlords protect their homes and if they are not there to protect their homes…who would be responsible if a home or septic tank went into a lake.”
Thompson says he’s afraid funding for infrastructure projects might hit the back burner on the priority list amid the pandemic. He added that at the last meeting there were conversations of working through the Drainage Act.
“That would mean that the homeowners would be on the hook for a portion of it, as would the farmers as would the municipalities. My concern for the homeowners is now they are paying into something that will isolate them from Chatham-Kent…because the plan presented through the Drainage Act would mean they wouldn’t have municipal road access to their properties."
Thompson says these concerns will be brought up in the next meeting, which will happen online, sometime in April.
