Aggregate company aggravates council

Roger Varley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Council was less than receptive during Tuesday’s council meeting to correspondence from SASE Aggregates Ltd. seeking changes to the operations at its pit 486 Old Highway 47.

Mayor Dave Barton said the changes proposed by SASE were "a major concern."

"What they're asking for undoes all the work we've done with SASE," he said. "I do not support this application. I will be talking to the Ministry of Natural Resources."

The past work Barton referred to included ensuring SASE complied with provincial legislation and township requests for making the gravel pit as non-intrusive as possible to the surrounding residential properties when it first began operations around a decade ago. He said they also negotiated no fill at the time.

SASE now proposes, among other things, revising the site plan to allow for the importation and resale of excess soil; revising the site plan to allow the recycling of concrete and asphalt; and revising the site plan to allow the importation of wood chips, peat moss and compost to blend with topsoil for resale. Barton described this as SASE wanting the site to be “a contractor’s yard” in the middle of the Oak Ridges Moraine.

Beach said SASE "totally went around us" with its application. She asked staff to prepare a resolution before the end of the meeting.

At the end of the meeting, council passed a resolution which noted that the amendments would see a total of more than 5.2 million cubic metres of fill brought into the site and also lacked clarity with respect to the daily number of trucks entering and exiting the subject lands. The resolution said Uxbridge "strongly objects to the proposed amendment."

“I am pro-gravel,” said Barton, “but I am not pro this.”