Important new perspectives…

Important new perspectives in the 2014 PPS just released gives more clarity on how both the public and the relevant jurisdictions can evaluate the application for a Class “A” Category 1 licence (beneath the water table) to extract gravel from their 100 acre farm (Part lot 27, Concession 7 in the Township of Chatsworth, in geographic area Holland Centre. The PPS 2014 provides legislation that both acknowledges and requires protection of rural areas with special needs. The Community of Berkeley occupies the 4 corners of the intersection of Sixty Sideroad and Highway 10 where 50 - 100 trucks per day will exit the Township road and turn onto Provincial highway #10. In the Key Changes under ***Northern and Rural Communities*** "Recognize the diversity of settlement areas and rural areas and that some municipalities are experiencing no growth or declining population" This describes the situation in the Community of Berkeley. Its population remains stagnant at approximately 200 souls. There’s a post office, a gas station, two small businesses, home or “cottage industries” and a riding stable popular with tourists for many years, all within the intersection proper. Sideroad 60 is the only road providing access to the rest of the community, going east and west of Highway 10. The balance of the community on the Sideroad is rural, residential, light commerce and farming. The demographics maintain the trend in the whole of the Township of Chatsworth, predominantly persons over the age of 54. To all appearances, it’s a sleepy, peaceful community reminiscent of the 1950s. However, behind its appearance is a youthful energy struggling to develop Berkeley and its surroundings into a vibrant community. At the intersection, children play on the Sideroad, in front of their homes and cross to Berkeley Park. Young entrepreneurs have established new small businesses and a young farmer, already successful with highest awards to his goat herd, propel the area into a sense of well-being and future prosperity. Horse farms with yearlings occupy roadside paddocks, valuable crops line both sides of 60 Sideroad, and Provincially Significant Wetlands and Hazard Lands have their banks about a metre from the roadside edges. 1/5 Developers have been busy constructing new homes all along 60 Sideroad, east and west of the proposed pit, and onto its tributaries, Veterans’Rd. S. and the West Back Line. During the summer, cyclists, hikers, riders and their horses mix with the general outdoor life of a country road - mothers with babies in strollers and young students visiting the virtual classroom in our Natural Heritage sites. All of this land use is compatible with one another. And, all this compatibility, the hopes of the young farmers, families and businesses for well-being and prosperity in the Berkeley Community threatens to come to an abrupt and brutal end. If the Bumstead Pit application to extract gravel is approved, 50 – 100 trucks will transport gravel from the proposed Bumstead Pit, 6 days a week, 7 months of the year, 18 – 20 years. The Bumstead Pit application makes no mention of Berkeley and the surrounding community on Sideroad 60. There is not a single word of acknowledgement that there may be negative impacts to the economy, to the environment, to the health and safety of the population or a vision of the quality of life that will never be realized if the proposed application is approved. In order to succeed in their ambitions, at the lowest cost to themselves, the proponents ignore the very existence of the Berkeley community and therefore have no mitigation plans to protect the public from the hazards to health from operations in the pit, along the haulage route and within Berekely. Dust particulates of 2.5 pm and “black soot” emissions from diesel engines are extremely dangerous to human health and the environment. Concerns are growing and protests are escalating. Evidence exists that there is a “huge adverse impact on citizens’ health, especially in pulmonary related problems. We have a significant increase in patient admission, costing our health care system a significant amount of money and resources” (Benny Thannikkotu, MD. FRCSC. FACS, Medical Officer of Health, Region of Peel Health Services, speaking about aggregate operations and their cumulative impacts on local airsheds). 1.0 BUILDING STRONG AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES 1.1.1 (c) avoiding development and land use patterns which may cause environmental or public health and safety concerns Yet there are no contingency plans in the event of a diesel spill in the wetlands area nor sufficient practices described to mitigate negative impacts of diesel fume emissions. No response has yet been received to our demand that an environmental compliance approval be obtained from the Ministry of the Environment. The approval should confirm that air pollution coming from the proposed pit operations and along the haulage route, not only meets the required standards, but also ensures that the instrument is sufficiently protective of human health. No traffic safety study has been undertaken. And there are no offers to compensate the losses suffered by the community. 2. Due to truck traffic, noise, dust and a scarred landscape, all new housing development will cease and those small business who would have benefitted from the construction, from the growth in the population in an expanding settlement, with consumer needs and demands, will relocate before failure stares them down. 1.1.1 (d) avoiding development and land use patterns that would prevent the efficient expansion of settlement areas in those areas which are adjacent or close to settlement areas. A gravel pit in an economically struggling rural and settlement area, will depress economic development and virtually smother the growth of Berkeley. 1.1.3 Settlement Areas “The vitality of settlement areas is critical to the long-term economic prosperity of our communities” 1.1.3.1 Settlement areas shall be the focus of growth and development and their vitality and regeneration shall be promoted Let the housing development continue in this community. Encourage more young farmers to invest in Prime Agricultural soils that surround the proposed pit. Give families with children the reasons to stay, become educated, practice their professions, marry and have children of their own in the Township of Chatsworth. Provide grants to stimulate the young businesses in Berkeley. Allow the influx of city folk who want to retire here, sustain the housing industry and create the demand for manufacturing. Sustain the interest in holidaying in our area by keeping the roads an attractive, assessable and safe passage for enjoyment. 1.1.4 Rural Areas in Municipalities “It is important to leverage rural assets and amenities and protect the environment as a foundation for a sustainable economy” 1.1.5.7 "Opportunities to support a diversified rural economy should be promoted by protecting agricultural and other resource related uses and directing non-related development to areas where it will minimize constraints on these uses." The Official Plan of Grey County is precise in its support of this legislation in their own Official Plan: "To direct land uses which are not related to or compatible with agriculture, away from agricultural uses".. (O.P. 1.6.4) The foregoing Provincial Policy statements considering the needs for protection and promotion of a settlement area and a Prime Agricultural area suffer a state of conflict when we raise the question: “Do we need the Bumstead Pit?” 2.5.2.1 "Demonstration of need for mineral aggregate resources, including any type of supply/demand analysis, shall not be required", Of whom is it not required to make an analysis of supply and demand for gravel? The aggregate industry or the proponent? Who else is not required to provide a needs analysis? Grey County? The Township of Chatsworth? The Province? The County is free to consult and undertake an economic feasibility study in order to make land use decisions based on their goal to balance the needs of the County. Presumably that includes an analysis of the need for gravel. Why not? How could the economic development plans of the County proceed without understanding the nature of the need for aggregate in light of supply and demand parameters both locally and in large urban centres? 3.6 (b) limited non-residential uses 3. "there is an identified need within the planning horizon provided for in policy 1.1.2 for additional land to be designated to accommodate the proposed use" What does “planning horizon” mean if it does not intend to include a broad examination of the requirements for another gravel pit in the County and that the additional land for another pit should be provided for by Berkeley and the 60 Sideroad community to accommodate it? If there is an “identified need” for gravel and if there is a need for “additional land” to “accommodate the proposed use”, and this land is only available in the 100 acre farm on the north/east corner of Sideroad 60 and Veterans’ Road S, 4.5 km west of Berekely, in the middle of established agricultural and residential land uses, then we insist on the studies that prove it, undertaken by the County of Grey, and that the public have access to the observations and recommendations before amendments to the Official Plan to re designate the Bumstead Farm from agricultural to M3-Extractive Industrial and the application for an amendment to the Township Of Chatsworth Bylaws to rezone the farm to M3-Extractive Industrial are decided. Further, we insist that County and Township show us how, in detail, that the proposed Bumstead gravel pit "will serve a greater long-term public interest.........." 2.4.2.2 (b) to the Berkeley and the Sideroad 60 community. In addition the “quality and quantity” of the gravel available beneath the earth of the proposed Bumstead Pit site, should meet the standards of the Ministry of Natural Resources ARA for the assessment of warrant. ARA Matters to be considered by the Minister 12, (1) (i) Inclusion of alternative aggregates is an essential part of any needs analysis. According to the Ministry of Transport, new mega highway projects are smaller. Between 10 and 12 km long , all well served by close to urban centre pits and quarries. The MTO boasts increasing use of alternative aggregate, consuming 62% fewer aggregates and costing 40 - 50% less. In 2010, our own Hwy 6 from Mars to Tobermory, 66 km, was the largest single cold-in-place (recycling concrete and asphalt pavements) resurfacing project ever completed by the MTO. Finally, no licence should be granted without demonstrable assurances that the Ministry of Natural Resources has met this overarching planning policy with respect to the conclusions of the above County investigations into needs: Planning Act Section 6 (2) Planning Policies “A ministry, before carrying out or authorizing and undertaking what the ministry considers will directly affect any municipality, shall consult with, and have regard for, the established planning policies of the municipality.” After all, a whole community is being forced to alter its way of life, live with threats to their health and safety, face losses to their property value, losses to agriculture, tourism, housing and small business and face a negative impact on a fragile environment for 18 – 20 years. (beyond the lifespan of most of the community elders). Therefore, it should not be unreasonable for the affected population to be informed, respectfully, with the answers to these reasonable and legitimate requests. Until then, we object most adamantly to the Bumstead Pit application for a Class "A" Categpru 1 (Beneath the Water Table) gravel pit. Respectfully submitted.