The 106-acre farm north of Lambs Road in Clarington has had a captivating history during its 90-year history. John Jarry donated the property to the province in the early years of the past century for use as a reformatory – the Bowmanville boys’ training school.

For a time during the World War II, it became a prisoner of war camp for captured German officers – Camp 30. Until recently, you could find former inmates paying return visits to the property and to the Camp 30 museum in the Clarington municipal building.

For the past 25 years, it has been home to a succession of private schools that saw the opportunity to take advantage of a ready-made campus including 18 buildings, playing fields and its own generating plant.

At present, Stouffville-based developer, Kaitlin Group desires to turn the property into a combination housing development and historic and cultural centre. It would build a total of 320 new detached homes, townhouses and three- and four-storey condo buildings on the southern and northern portions of the site.

Unfortunately, there is a major problem in this fine vision of the future. It is not with the housing side. There is little obstruction to creating 110 new homes to the south and another 210 to the north. That is a pretty straightforward proposition.

The real problem is first what to do with the 66 acres Kaitlin is willing to donate to the municipality and then how to fund their future use. Clarington is a small municipality including Bowmanville, Courtice and Newcastle and the cost of something as straightforward as renovating and refurbishing the existing historic buildings would be backbreaking.