CENTREVILLE – The fate of a clothing-optional campground near Tamworth now rests with the province’s planning appeal tribunal.

More than two years of acrimony came to a head Thursday as the owners of a nudist ranch north of Napanee had their appeal of a township zoning decision heard by the province’s planning appeal body.

Yvonne Gibson and Hector Gravelle, owners of Freedom Fields Naturist Ranch, which opened in 2012, were appealing the 2018 denial by Stone Mills Township council of their request to have their 40-hectare property on Carroll Road rezoned to permit expansion of their campground.

In April 2018, Stone Mills Township council voted 4-3 against the rezoning application, a decision that went against recommendations from township staff and a consultant’s report.

Gibson said the township councillors’ concerns about sewage, noise, garbage and recycling were “fabrications” and were “speculative, biased and not consistent with the evidence before it.”

“The Township of Stone Mills reached beyond its function,” Gibson said. “They are clearly acting in a judicial function and not a legislative function.”

Gibson likened the camping experience at the ranch to a provincial park, with guests bringing in their own drinking water and food and taking out their own garbage and recycling.

She argued that a campground was an appropriate business to operate in a rural area.

At the outset of the hearing, Local Planning Appeal Tribunal member Thomas Hodgins said the case revolved around the question of whether the township’s zoning bylaw was consistent and compliant with the official plans of the township and Lennox and Addington County and the provincial policy statement that guides rural development.

“We are really down to arguing one issue today,” said Hodgins, who added that the heart of the matter was deciding what kind of use is permitted in rural areas.

To be successful, Gibson and Gravelle must convince the LPAT that their campground proposal is consistent with local and provincial planning policies and that existing planning policies are deficient.

In answer to Hodgins’ question, land use planner Bob Clark, hired by Gibson and Gravelle to provide expert testimony, said in written and oral submissions that the different levels of legislation were not clear about whether a campground should be permitted.

“I believe the zoning bylaw is not consistent with the PPS,” Clark said.

Clark added there was a good reason for that inconsistency, as it allows the township to consider site-specific considerations, such as environmental issues, size, scale and compatibility.

Land use planner Mark Touw, who testified on behalf of the township, said the provincial policy statement was meant to provide broad direction across Ontario, but zoning decisions about specific sites are within the jurisdiction of local governments.

“The PPS encourages a range of uses,” Touw said. “The PPS doesn’t mandate that municipalities must allow all uses everywhere.”

In this case, a campground could be allowed if certain criteria are met, added the township’s lawyer, Tony Fleming.

“Municipalities do not pre-zone every conceivable use that may be spoken about in the PPS,” Fleming said. “It isn’t intended to be a shopping list that is to be cut and pasted onto a zoning bylaw.”