Pembroke Ontario - Renfrew County has taken another few steps towards taking over the CP corridor.
 
On Tuesday, following an hour and a half discussion behind closed doors, the development and property committee is recommending county council hire the Ottawa law firm of Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) to draw up an Agreement of Purchase and Sale for the railway lands.
 
As well, the firm will draft an agreement which would formalize the relationship between the county and its partners Lanark County and Papineau-Cameron Township, detailing the sections of the corridor each partner would be responsible for overseeing.
 
The cost of doing this legal work will be $75,000, which will be cost shared between the three partners, based on the amount of rail corridor running through each party's municipality.
 
Renfrew County, which possesses 72.06 percent of the CP land, will be kicking in $54,045 of that cost.
 
Petawawa Mayor Bob Sweet, development and property chairman, said this will take the county a step closer to acquiring the rail corridor, which has been on the block since the beginning of 2010, when Canadian Pacific Railway announced it intended to discontinue and sell off the line.
 
"We have to spend money to get the partnership agreement and purchasing agreement worked out," Sweet said, stating county council will get a detailed in-camera briefing on the CP acquisition during its meeting 30 Sep 2015, before they vote on the committee's recommendations.
 
The abandoned rail corridor runs 300 kilometres from Smiths Falls to Mattawa, with 218 kilometres of that cutting through Renfrew County.
 
The dream is to obtain it to use as the backbone of a major all season trail system, which would be interlinked with existing Northern and Southern Ontario trails.
 
Since the railway prefers to dispose of its land in one solid piece, the county has partnered with Lanark County and Papineau-Cameron to obtain the whole 300 kilometres, which under the partnership agreement will be divided among the trio in order to protect it over the long term, distribute the liability, and minimize the complexity of managing it.
 
Lanark County would be in charge of acquiring the section of rail lands which extends into Ottawa, while Renfrew County will be negotiating with Pembroke to obtain their section of the CP corridor.
 
Sweet said there is no deadline to wrapping up this land deal, but he added he really would like to see this settled as soon as possible, hopefully by year's end.
 
While he wouldn't go into the details of the committee discussion on the railway corridor purchase, he did state there is a lot more work to do before this deal is done.
 
"We're not naive," Sweet said, noting there will be many challenges ahead before the CP corridor is in the county's hands.
 
Stephen Uhler.