[All] Provincial push to loosen rules on aggragate extraction-Regional Council vote tomorrow

[strothjkl at sympatico.ca]

Thank you Greg. They did interview the mayor of Guelph too, and she
concurred with the RoW person that the record on cleanup and remediation
/"restoration to former state" attempts have been voluntary and very rarely
acted upon/done by companies after they take all they want from a site so
far. So unless held legally to do those things, most companies won't,
because they don't see what is in it for them , beyond good stewardship I
imagine.

 

Lori

 

From: Gregory C. Michalenko <gcmichalenko at uwaterloo.ca> 
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 11:45 AM
To: strothjkl at sympatico.ca; GREN <all at gren.ca>
Subject: Re: [All] Provincial push to loosen rules on aggragate
extraction-Regional Council vote tomorrow

 

Thanks for sending this Lori.  I've been in touch with the Region planners
and seen the report they have crafted.  The proposed changes to provincial
planning legislation have three particularly horrible "reforms": prohibition
of municipalities imposing stricter regulations on gravel extraction than
the Province, such as the Region of Waterloo's regulation that a 1.5 meter
protective buffer has to be left; allowing developments like gravel
extraction to occur in designated natural heritage sites on the flimsy
grounds of a claim that eventual rehabilitation can restore it (e.g., a
significant forest could be cut down and grubbed out); and a requirement
that municipal assessment of housing development proposals should take into
account "market value" (much more profit can be made on single detached
house construction than on social housing: this could give such proposals
the edge in appeals to the resurrected OMB).  And there is much more.  The
Ford bunch are as bad as ever despite the cheery chirping after the federal
election about how they want to be good buddies and cooperate with other
jurisdictions.

 

You can see the report that will be delivered at the council meeting by
going to the Region website and clicking on the agenda for the council
meeting, which includes the document package that councillors receive a few
days prior to meetings.  You can submit a comment to the Environmental
Registry, but the deadline is very close - November 4th.  I'm composing a
comment on behalf of GREN today and will circulate it to the GREN list
tomorrow..

- Greg Michalenko

 

  _____  

From: All <all-bounces at gren.ca <mailto:all-bounces at gren.ca> > on behalf of
strothjkl at sympatico.ca <mailto:strothjkl at sympatico.ca>
<strothjkl at sympatico.ca <mailto:strothjkl at sympatico.ca> >
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 10:42 AM
To: GREN
Subject: [All] Provincial push to loosen rules on aggragate
extraction-Regional Council vote tomorrow 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/province-s-plans-to-change
-gravel-pit-rules-could-harm-local-water-natural-areas-report-1.5338478
This is to be voted on at Regional Council tomorrow.


 
<https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/province-s-plans-to-chang
e-gravel-pit-rules-could-harm-local-water-natural-areas-report-1.5338478> 

www.cbc.ca <http://www.cbc.ca> 

Regional staff are urging the province to reconsider changes that would
loosen rules around gravel mining and other aggregate extraction.

 

 

 

This morning on CBC-KW they interviewed a Land Use Planning staffperson from
the Region of Waterloo, I imagine the same one quoted in the article above,
and he said they have written up their views against it -and their position
paper on this will be voted on at Regional Council tomorrow -Wed. Oct.
30th.and then they will send it to the Ford people. One of the primary
concerns here is that if construction is allowed to go too deep, below the
water table, it could contaminate our aquifers, so at a bare minimum, they
want it to be stipulated that anything approved has to be above the
waterline.  But it sounds like they are completely against the concept in
general.  This involves many other types of projects- not just aggragate. 

 

Lori S.

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