Residents Win Gravel Fight

Residents against the proposed development of a gravel pit in the south end of the city have seen their luck with the Ontario Municipal Board hold, as an appeal before the OMB has worked out in their favour. The OMB, issuing its second major decision concerning Guelph in as many weeks, dismissed an appeal by Capital Paving Inc. and found in favour of the Cranberry Area Residents and Ratepayers Association.

This was an appeal by Capital Paving to the OMB to get an area in Puslinch rezoned so as to allow the company to create a gravel pit. Capital's application was first made back in February 2005, but was later rejected after CARRA protested. Capital filed an appeal, which was heard over 31 days last year. But in its decision, the OMB said ahat "The Planning Act Appeals for Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment do not represent good planning and are not in the public interest." The result is that the appeal is dismissed and a license will now not be issued from the Ministry of Natural Resources.

In case you weren't following this one, it was one of those Goliath Vs Goliath stories. What we have here is a gravel company that was looking for a permit to collect aggregate from a lot in the Township of Puslinch. The people fighting this new pit were residents who lived within one kilometre of the site in, let me quote to get the wording right, "substantial homes on large estate type lots." Puslinch was also against the pit, but mostly on the basis of protecting the water table, and pushed for limits to be placed on below the ground extraction.

Capital is a Puslinch-based company that wanted to collect 1.25 million tonnes of aggregate over three years to used mainly for the company's road construction operations. This site would have been a feeder site, where the gravel would be collected and then shipped to the main Capital plant where the aggregate would be processed.