Earlier this month, The Township of Lake of Bays sold a municipally owned island property in exchange for $1.1 million.
The 1.73-acre waterfront property boasts 720 feet of shoreline and is located on Bigwin Island, which spans roughly 520 acres and is the largest island on the Lake of Bays. It’s largely occupied by the Bigwin Island Golf Club, but two vacant municipally-owned properties, mostly used for walking, also existed on the island.
In March 2023, the larger 1.73-acre property was briefly considered for the creation of a public park to be maintained by the township’s Parks Department, but after staff investigated the feasibility of the project, it was deemed too challenging to upkeep and monitor.
In the wake of that decision, Town staff were directed to assess if the two smaller vacant properties could be sold for development as a way to get rid of any municipally-owned real estate that was too cumbersome to maintain. By June 2025, council had declared those two properties “surplus” and listed them for sale on the open market.
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“Following consultation with legal, and a review by planning, parks, and other departments, along with environmental considerations, it was determined that maintaining and monitoring a public space on this water-access only parcel was not practical,” says the township’s director of corporate services, Carrie Sykes. “Rather than holding on to land that wasn’t being used by the public and wasn’t suitable for community use, Council made the decision to sell the property.”
After more than a year, Council approved the sale of the 1.73-acre property at an October 13 meeting, with the sale scheduled to officially close on December 15. Since the transaction hasn’t closed yet, the town is unable to share the identity of the buyer. However, the property was sold through an open-market process with the Township’s Realtor of Record.
Sykes says revenue generated by the $1.1 million sale will be placed in the town’s reserves and invested into projects and community assets that residents can readily access and benefit from.
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