Tri City Lands Ltd. has submitted a “housekeeping amendment” for a new aggregate extraction pit in the southwest corner of Guelph-Eramosa Township.
“As council is aware there was a new comprehensive bylaw that was approved last summer,” township planning consultant Neal DeRuyter, of MHBC planning, explained on Feb. 6. “Due to an outstanding appeal on the previous approved bylaw, the extraction zoning had not come into place, so as a result they had to do an amendment to this new bylaw.”
The “Spencer Pit” zoning bylaw amendment application was originally submitted in 2014 and despite numerous objections at a March 7, 2016 public meeting, council approved the zoning bylaw amendment on May 2.
The proposed pit will be located in the southwest corner of the municipality on Wellington Road 124, north of an existing rail line. The vehicle entrance will be off of Wellington Road 124, directly opposite Kossuth Road.
The rezoning amendment application requested that 51 hectares (127 acres) of land currently zoned agricultural be rezoned to extractive industrial, allowing for above-the-water-table extraction of up to 650,000 tonnes of aggregate annually for five to 10 years.
The application was appealed by homeowners and was sent to the Ontario Municipal Board for a hearing in January.
However, on Aug. 8 council repealed and replaced its zoning bylaw amendment and because the new zoning for the pit lands had not come into effect because of the appeals, Tri City is now applying for an amendment to the new bylaw.
Councillor Mark Bouwmeester asked how the application had changed in “layman’s terms.”
“In our minds nothing other than a new comprehensive bylaw,” DeRuyter said. “The county has some comments, which we are in the process of working through.”
Tri City must now also submit an application to Wellington County for an Official Plan amendment, something that wasn’t required previously because the area was designated prime agricultural and was included within a mineral aggregate resource overlay.
Now the land is subject to the policies of the Wellington County Official Plan amendment 81, “including the requirement for an amendment for new aggregate operations,” DeRuyter wrote in his report.
Both the Official Plan amendment and the zoning bylaw amendment applications have been deemed complete.
“Any objections that were launched against the prior approval fell away when that was dismissed and it was necessary for them to come back with a new application?” asked councillor David Wolk.
DeRuyter confirmed those objections were no longer valid, adding, “that does mean there could be additional comments and objections that come through this application.”
Council will be holding a joint public meeting with Wellington County on March 6 at 7pm at the township office.
James Dick Construction has also submitted a new application for a quarry south of Rockwood as a result of the township’s new bylaw.
