The Lagoon City condominiums in Ramara Township on Lake Simcoe is Ontario's oldest and largest canal community.
Most of us associate Venetian-like canal communities with palm trees waving in warm Florida breezes in places such as Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach. But even in palm-starved Ontario, the demand for waterfront homes has created a market for canal communities stretching from the shores of Lake Simcoe to the far southwest in Essex County.
Jim Hopson recalls the first time he drove from his native Oshawa to the east side of Lake Simcoe more than 20 years ago and discovered a place he'd never heard of – Lagoon City. "The fountain, Laguna Parkway, the canals. It was totally mesmerizing," Mr. Hopson says. "Every house and condo was on the water. And the prices were ridiculously low. Muskoka is the playground of the rich. This place is for the rest of us."
Since then, Mr. Hopson has owned two condos and now has a 5,000-square-foot detached home in Lagoon City. "I have no intention of ever leaving," he says.
At 57, the semi-retired businessman, who owns a recording studio, exports fruit juice concentrate and runs his own food service training business, is familiar with Florida's canal communities, but says "the charm of this place is the seasons." Once summer's over and the boat is put away, there's hiking trails and cross-country skiing all winter.
"This is the best-kept secret in the province," he says.
Lagoon City is Ontario's oldest and largest canal community but it's not the only one. There are other smaller residential developments centred on canals, including Young's Harbour in the Town of Georgina and in the far southwest, where Essex County boasts several canal communities in the waterfront towns of Kingsville, Amherstburg, LaSalle, Tecumseh and Lakeshore.
In each one, developers have learned to cater to the avid boater by creating canal or lagoon communities that allow residents to tie up their launches, canoes and kayaks right in their back (or front) yard and enjoy quick access to larger recreational waterways for fishing, swimming, water-skiing and sightseeing. Properties are often much less expensive than those on nearby lakes.
The concept of Lagoon City as a canal-based, vacation-at-home retirement community dates from the 1960s, the dream of Hungarian engineer Andrew Zsolt. When construction got under way in the seventies, plans were for a town of 26,000. In the early 1990s, when developers became entangled in the then-New Democratic Party government's environmental and planning regulations, the population stalled at about 3,000. Acres of undeveloped land remained.
Richard Fenn moved to Lagoon City in 1988 to sell real estate. He says with the original buyers 20 or so years older than they were when they arrived, the community is undergoing a major transition, with boomer-age couples arriving to replace older residents. Half the community lives there permanently, he says, with the other half travelling south for the winter.
"But winter is wonderful here," Mr. Fenn says. "We don't get as much snow as Barrie and Georgian Bay, but what falls stays white. Not like in the city."
He says Lagoon City is unique in Canada, situated at the heart of the Trent-Severn Waterway with boat access to the Great Lakes. Residents can sail their boats right from their own docks south to Florida, he says.
As for prices, "we're very undervalued here. Compare what you'll pay here for a 3,000-square-foot home to what you'll pay on Georgian Bay." Condos start at $150,000 with detached homes on 70-by-200-foot lots starting at $300,000. Most top out at $650,000, although Mr. Fenn says there are a few in the million-dollar range.
"You have to see Lagoon City from the water," he says. "It's the water side that's most spectacular."
Meanwhile, Essex County, with Ontario's mildest climate and surrounded on three sides by water, has attracted what is probably the largest concentration of canal communities in the province. They range from Cedar Island in Kingsville, to River Canard in Amherstburg, several along the riverfront in LaSalle, Pike Creek in Tecumseh and Lakeshore, as well as Lighthouse Cove in Lakeshore. You can buy anything from cottages to modest homes to mansions.
Based in Amherstburg, real estate salesman Brad Bondy deals with a lot of waterfront properties and says canal lots offer great value. One of his listings on a LaSalle canal, south of Windsor, is a five-bedroom, three-bath "immaculate property" that was recently featured for $559,000.
Mr. Bondy estimates the same property on a lakeshore lot in Essex County could fetch $700,000 or more, while if it was located on Georgian Bay, "You'd be looking a way over $1-million."
"People are looking for their water paradise," he says. "There's only so much waterfront, and canals offer boaters easy access out to the lake."
Special to The Globe and Mail