Upcoming public meeting to address private fill regulations
Jan 19, 2010 - 04:30 AM
By Jeff Hayward
UXBRIDGE -- Residents looking to dump fill, remove topsoil or change the grading on their property potentially face a new slate of regulations if the Township passes a proposed bylaw.
Uxbridge is looking at rules including the need for security deposits for site alterations; a requirement for a pre-consultation meeting; and details of fill and where it's coming from, among several other changes.
But residents can have their say about the changes, as the Township is hosting a public meeting relating to its proposed site alteration bylaw, at Goodwood Community Centre on Monday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. An information open house will precede the meeting at 6:30 p.m.
But what won't be a topic at that meeting is commercial fill operations, those that allow fill onto property as a source of revenue.
Allowing such commercial operations in the township should be considered and even encouraged, said Uxbridge Bob Shepherd, who added they could amount to millions of dollars in revenue for the Township.
"There is huge pressure on developers to get rid of millions of cubic metres of unwanted excavated material and they are paying haulers large sums of money to find places to dump it ... there is absolutely no reason why the Township, with a well-crafted bylaw in place, could not collect at least $10 a load for every load of fill dumped in our Township.
"At 500 loads a day, that would extrapolate to about $2 million a year in revenue."
He acknowledged there would "be additional truck traffic ... there's no question."
But some councillors, including Coun. Bev Northeast, have voiced concerns about allowing commercial fill operations.
"The residents of Uxbridge have had to tolerate for many years the noise and pollution created by the gravel trucks hauling aggregate through our hamlets," stated Coun. Northeast in a letter to her fellow elected officials. "We cannot afford to financially oversee the rehabilitation of gravel pits, or allow our standards to go backwards on the protection of the environment."
She added she doesn't want Uxbridge to become a "dumping ground for others."
Coun. Northeast suggested the Township should work with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority and Ministry of Natural Resources, "to agree to oversee the rehabilitation of gravel pits to bring the area into a natural habitat for plants and wildlife."
While the Feb. 8 meeting, which includes a question period, will not centre around commercial fill operations, "the public has a right to ask about commercial fill ... a public meeting is a public meeting," said Mayor Shepherd.
Township officials said the bylaw will be posted for review at
www.town.uxbridge.on.ca.
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