I have strong objections to…

I have strong objections to this proposal to move a portion of the Miller Paving Limited property on Concession 7 from under the oversight of the MNRF over to the oversight of the Township of Uxbridge.

My objections are for several reasons. Firstly, Miller Paving has a history of breaking the rules on this site including maintaining and growing their illegal contractor’s yard even after three separate audits by the MNRF telling them to remove it in 2010, 2015, and 2020. This contractor’s yard is not legal and violates the Oak Ridges Moraine Act and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan. Beyond this contractor’s yard, they also regularly stretch the rules by having trucks loading at their site as early as 5am regularly. Miller Paving clearly feels as though they are able to act without consequence so moving the oversight of part of their property over to the Township, which has less enforcement power than the MNRF, is a disaster waiting to happen. On top of this, the Township simply does not have the resources or the expertise to effectively oversee this site which will inevitably be taken advantage of. The MNRF passing the buck onto the Township is simply irresponsible and should not be allowed.

Secondly, by moving the governance of this land over to the Township, it would allow the Township to approve other requests and applications by Miller including building a 40,000 sq ft industrial building, expanding use of their illegal contractor’s yard, as well as importing fill into this land. Aggregate pits are a part of our lives in Uxbridge, and that is fine, but aggregate pits are designed to be utilized as far as their useful natural life allows, and then they are to be rehabilitated and returned back to their natural state. Converting a significant portion of the Miller property into a permanent industrial site goes against this, and if this is allowed in one aggregate pit, then all 40+ aggregate pits in Uxbridge will want this as it would be a logical business decision. This is a dangerous precedent and it goes against what the people of Uxbridge signed up for when we moved here - we moved here knowing aggregate pits were a part of our lives, but we did not move to Uxbridge to see industrial sites covering this land.

Thirdly, This Miller site sits within the Oak Ridges Moraine and even more pressingly sits on top of a highly vulnerable aquifer. If these various proposals were to be approved, there would be fill imported onto this sensitive land from across the GTA which has a known risk of associated contaminants, which in turn would put our water at risk. The Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan exists to protect this sensitive land, so turning this into an industrial site is not only immoral, it is illegal.

It is clear that there are many problems with this proposal and I hope that the Ministry stands up for what is right and lawful and shuts this down.