Cottage lots project churning new spending activity.

• Author: Gilbert, Craig
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT: ELLIOT LAKE & NORTH SHORE

If there is one thing that Dan Gagnon has learned since joining the corporation of the City of Elliot Lake, it is that provincial pilot projects are a good thing.

The current director of projects, tourism and leisure started out as the "funding go-getter," spending most of his professional hours filling out and following up on grant applications.

Since then, pilot projects in all-terrain vehicle (ATV) tourism and Crown land waterfront development have propelled the city forward not just from its status as a busted mining town, but from its newer reputation as a retirement destination of choice.

In 2003, Elliot Lake put up for sale the first round of what will total 404 waterfront lots on Crown land freed up for under the pilot project.

According to Gagnon, the caveat that buyers must start construction on the lots within three years of purchase is paying off in spades for the local Home Hardware outlet. That store has doubled its business, he says.

And after paying an average price of about $45,000 (and as much as $99,000) for the lot, the owners are keeping local contractors busy laying down foundations and erecting walls.

In the first round of litmus-test tenders, the prime lots went for about $27,000.

Feedback the city has received indicates there is a good market for larger lots with more lake frontage (the average lot has about 150 feet of frontage and is about 1.5 acres in size). Gagnon says he is more than happy to merge two lots, or work to find a desired combination of grade, frontage and acreage.

"We don't want to turn people away when they are ready to buy, cash in hand."

If that's your biggest problem ...

The success of the city's reinvention of itself as a destination of choice for retirees has actually created an obstacle for the cottage lots project. The perception of Elliot Lake outside the area, Gagnon explains, is consistently either that of a retirement community or a mining town. That is something he has to fight through in trying to sell young professionals with new families on the idea of recreating in the sunny Elliot Lake summer.

"So we fight against that," he says. "We're a victim of our own success."

Destination Elliot Lake, which incorporates the city's tourism strategy, the newly-expanded golf course and the waterfront lots initiative, was developed to cater to the next generation of retirees: the baby boomers.

That group tends to have more dual income couples, is in better health and lives longer, has more...