Ontario couple says decades-old riding business crushed after water from new development dumped near property

CBC

6 days ago

It's a 40-hectares farm that's been in Penny Beer's family for generations, and the place where she and her husband hoped to continue their riding business into retirement to support their income.
But those hopes, they say, were dashed when water started being dumped into the ravine adjacent to their Midhurst, Ont., property.
Beer says it got so bad, the trails she used to train horses – some of which have competed at an Olympic level – became washed out, and in at least once instance, a horse sank right to its knees. She says she's been forced to shutter the majority of the business for the safety of her clients and the horses, and for liability reasons.
"I have people that would come in and train and it's affected the training," Beer told CBC Toronto.
"We felt like it wasn't safe for them to be using those trails."
The apparent source of the water: runoff from a subdivision project under construction just down the street. The Beers claim that since work began three years ago on Rose Corporation's Midhurst Heights project, they've been experiencing issues with water runoff.
The situation became critical in April when, according to her husband, Glenn Beer, the developer discharged large amounts of water, built up from a weather event, from its on-site stormwater management pond.
"They pumped with two pumps for 10 days, 24 hours a day across the road, with hoses [going] down the trail and into our property," Glenn told CBC Toronto.
He says he's not just concerned about the volume of water, but its quality too.
"That's dirty water in my opinion," Glenn said. "It's off the bottom of cars and whatever everybody washes to the curb. I don't want this water brought into our property."
A storm outfall plan apparently approved in December 2023 by the local municipality allows future runoff from the development to be pumped in the land adjacent to the Beer's property. But the Beers say they received no notice from the Springwater Township that such a plan was even being considered — let alone put in place.
At a May 21, 2025 council meeting reviewed by CBC Toronto, the municipality's director of public works, Trevor Harvey, told council that it had approved modified plans from the developer that included using the land next to the Beers.
"That's my understanding," Harvey said.
Over the span of a week, requests to interview Harvey and the township's mayor Jennifer Coughlin were declined, as a spokesperson said no one was available due to "scheduling and current priorities."
A subsequent detailed list of questions was not answered by deadline.
Washed out trails, worried neighbours
CBC Toronto reviewed hours of council footage and reviewed past Township agenda meetings dating back to 2023 to try and understand how the modified plan was approved.
At a council meeting on May 7, 2025, Harvey told council the original plan for stormwater runoff from the development was for the water to be pumped straight up Gill Road north roughly four kilometres to an area called Matheson Creek. He said the developer's plan, however, was modified to have the water discharged to two locations, one of them being the unopened Craig Road Allowance – or the Ganaraska trail – adjacent to the Beer's property, and that the design was supposed to mimic the existing drainage.
At a subsequent council meeting on May 21, Harvey said his understanding was "that council approved that [outfall plan] based on information provided at that time from NVCA [the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority] and [the Ontario] Ministry of Environment. And that was done in December 2023."
Documents from a Dec. 6, 2023 council meeting show that Rose Corporation was scheduled to make a presentation to council seeking approval for the next stage of development. In the appendices of that presentation is a modified storm outfall plan.
A spokesperson for the NVCA confirmed to CBC Toronto that on Aug. 28, 2024, its staff issued a permit for the installation of an interim stormwater outlet located within the Craig Road right-of-way, but said it did so "based on the developer's demonstration that peak flow rates … would be significantly reduced, thereby lowering the risk of flooding and erosion."
It's news that came as a total surprise to Glenn Beer.
"I think there were a lot of decisions made on our property and people never even came and looked at the property," he said, adding he only found out through a neighbour last fall.
That neighbour – Dan Caw – watched first-hand as water flooded his neighbour's property in April and worries the storm outflow plan will only cause more problems.
"The water running beside my neighbour's house was outrageous. Like it literally was washing out the trail and has never done that before," Caw told CBC Toronto.
Further down the street, neighbours in the existing subdivision say they've experienced flooding issues even before this new development began, given that they're in a low-lying area. They worry what increased water flow would mean for them.
"I think that our biggest concern is: where is the water going to go? Because if it runs straight behind us, it's going to have to slow down somehow, because it's going to be running so fast," said resident Jalena Orr.
NVCA says no damage
The Midhurst Heights development is slated to be a 1,400-lot residential subdivision, according to a 2022 Rose Corporation news release.
The corporation did not respond to multiple requests from CBC via phone and email.
An NVCA spokesperson told CBC Toronto that on May 15, 2024 a team member conducted a site inspection following a complaint, but saw no issues.
"The field observations of the Officer did not support the statement that the adjacent property was affected in any way as a result of any water/flow whether it be temporary or permanent from the development in Midhurst Heights," the spokesperson told CBC Toronto in a statement.
Glenn Beer rejects that.
"One hundred per cent we don't agree with that," he told CBC Toronto, saying the NVCA never reached out in advance of the visit, and that he would have been happy to accompany them to show the damage.
"It's obvious that the damage that's been done here happened in the past few years," he said.
For now, the Beers say the long-term future of their business remains in jeopardy, with no clear solution moving forward.
"I get that we need subdivisions," said Penny Beer.