Old Millbrook Jail Lands

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A Vision for Conserving the Former Millbrook Correctional Centre Lands

Old Millbrook Jail Lands Association  (a program of the Baxter Creek Watershed Alliance)

January 21, 2022

This is a summary of the Alliance's vision for the former Millbrook Correctional Centre Lands. The complete vision can be downloaded here.

The Township of Cavan Monaghan in Peterborough County is a growing rural community with a blend of agricultural lands and settled areas across a connected natural heritage system. Since the Millbrook Jail closed and was demolished, the local community in the Village of Millbrook has demonstrated a strong interest in preserving the 42 hectare (105 acre) property located within the settlement area for public use. 

Early in 2021, a local group of residents with common interest in watershed conservation founded the Baxter Creek Watershed Alliance, a non-government community-based organization. The Alliance, in collaboration with the Kawartha Land Trust, shared an interest in protecting the former Jail lands and so founded The Old Millbrook Jail Lands Association, an internal initiative of the Alliance under the Environmental Stewardship Committee, to encourage public ownership of the lands while keeping them as a publicly accessible urban open green space stewarded through guidance by the Alliance and other community members with a Conservation Agreement held in perpetuity by the Trust or another entity. It is the vision of the Alliance to see the significant natural ecological features of the Jail Lands conserved for future generations. The mental health and physical wellness benefits derived from publicly accessible urban open spaces has become increasingly important in recent times with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns the public has endured.

The former Millbrook Jail property, located within the planning boundary of the Oak Ridges Moraine, is a singularly beautiful property with a diverse landscape of hills and dales, containing significant mature woodlands, pine plantations, springs, seeps, recharge areas, valley lands, cold headwater streams, open grasslands and meadows. It provides panorama views across the Baxter Creek watershed, the Village of Millbrook and over the neighboring diverse Oak Ridges Moraine landscape.

As the area of Millbrook experiences the implementation of a long-term growth strategy there is a lack of publicly accessible open green space within the settlement area that is in proximity to residential and built up areas. Ensuring there is adequate open green space to provide ecosystem services, natural heritage offsetting (e.g., reforestation), and critical environmental values in supporting the physical and mental well-being of the community is paramount. The forested area of the property is recognized as a ‘Significant Woodland’ in the Cavan Monaghan Official Plan and provides crucial carbon sequestration. The open grasslands are important for providing grassland bird breeding habitat – for several that are species at risk – and is also the source headwaters of a cold water trout stream which is a tributary of Baxter Creek. This tributary is monitored locally and has a record of Brown Trout as recent as 2021.

In specific reference to Ontario’s Provincial Policy Statement (PPS), protecting the Jail property will:

• Demonstrate a commitment to building a strong healthy community in the Township (PPS Section 1).
• Demonstrate a healthy, livable and safe communities (PPS Section 1.1 Managing and Directing Land Use to Achieve Efficient and Resilient Development and Land Use Patterns):
  • Improving accessibility to open green spaces for persons with disabilities and older persons by addressing land use barriers which restrict full participation in society; 
  • Ensuring open green spaces will be available to meet current and projected needs; 
  • Promoting land use patterns that conserve biodiversity; and
  • Preparing for the local impacts of a changing climate by preserving open green space, headwater recharge and discharge areas.
• Provide a publicly accessible natural setting for a wide variety of outdoor recreation, parklands public space, open green space, while expanding trails and linkages (PPS Section 1.5 Public Spaces, Recreation, Parks, Trails and Open Space).
• Showcase wise use and management of resources, natural heritage, and water (PPS Section 2):
  • Ensure a large open green space is protected for the long-term environmental health and social well-being of local people while providing green space to conserve biodiversity, protect natural heritage, stream headwaters, for environmental and social benefits

Preserving and enhancing this property and its ecosystem services, in a natural state, will also preserve the surficial geology of the Millbrook Well Head Protection Area which covers 74% of the property. 

The property also has the potential for passive use that would have economic value to the community. The Cavan Monaghan Corporate Strategic Plan 2012-2014 suggests that the property has redevelopment potential. The Alliance’s vision includes the potential for publicly beneficial low-impact institutional or educational redevelopment consistent with zoning of the property in the Official Plan. 

The opportunity to protect such a significant publicly owned property located within the settlement area of a rapidly urbanizing community, as an educational and cultural hub, open green space and recreational conservation reserve for future generations to enjoy, will come along only once. Once it is gone, it is gone forever.