Dear Hon. Minister I am…

Dear Hon. Minister

I am writing to add my voice to wide-spread opposition from the Construction Industry, to O. Reg. 406/19. First though, thank you for deferring implementation while the government consults and makes appropriate amendments to the regulation.
As an experienced developer, I hope the issues I raise, and the solutions offered herein, are helpful. They are consistent with the O. Reg 406/19 Stakeholder Report submitted to the MECP by The London Excess Soil Stakeholder Group, with whom we are aligned.
Drewlo Holdings Inc. is a family-owned business that has been developing, constructing and managing apartment buildings in five cities in Southwestern Ontario for 60 years. Over 8,900 units are built, owned, and managed by Drewlo Holdings.
Delays Raise Costs; Exacerbate Housing Shortage
As a major landlord, I am concerned that increased costs will ultimately be borne by tenants and taxpayers. This is occuring at a time when rents have skyrocketed due to Ontario’s housing shortage; something the Province has acknowledged and taken initial steps to mitigate.
Specifically, O. Reg. 406/19 has resulted in the following delays, listed by new requirement and approximate time delays:
● QP historical assessment: 1-2 weeks
● Planning reports: 1-4 weeks
● Sampling and coordination (increased sample quantity: 1-2 weeks
● Sampling reports: 2-4 weeks
● Locating and negotiating with receiving sites: 1-2 months
● Instrument application, agreements and municipal approvals: 3-4 months
● Fill management report/Owner approval: 2-3 weeks
● Traffic control approval: 1 week

Often, delays extend projects into poor weather conditions, further reduce housing supply and inflate house prices even further.
Increased costs due to compliance obligations
The costs of moving soils has increased tremendously due to:
● Preconstruction – Additional reports, excessive testing and instrument requirements, engineering and associated delays.
● Construction – Increased hauling distance, haul records, excavation inefficiencies, double handling, registration, reports and engineering.
● Receiving site – Much higher tipping fees, registration, administration, reporting and risk.
Even the most conservative estimates reflect a nine figure cost increase that, as mentioned above, will be absorbed by taxpayers and homeowners.
Increased CO2E Emissions
In the past, suitable receiving sites were sourced quickly and located as close as possible to the project area. With new instrument requirements, unless a site was approved prior to tender, a contractor must take reusable fill to landfills or sites with existing instruments that may be located at a much further distance from the project area.
This has resulted in added costs and increased environmental impacts. In addition, premature filling of landfills means garbage will have to be trucked further distances.
Projects in the London area for 2022, are seeing an average 30-minute increase to haul times for each round trip. Given the estimated 25,000,000 cubic metres of excess soil generated in Ontario every year (Ontario.ca), this equals a CO2E increase of approximately 90,000 tonnes/year.
Reasonable Solutions
● Table 1 soils are “clean” and are the majority of soil reused in Ontario. There are no restrictions where this soil can be placed as it is essentially deemed safe. Once a QP has deemed soils meet the rigorous Table 1 classification requirements, O. Reg 406/19 regulations should no longer apply.
● Receiving sites, especially low-risk Table 1 sites, should be approved quickly at all levels of government. An instrument number should not be required to move fill.
● An EASR-like process (Environmental Activity and Sector Registry) similar to the low‐risk water-taking permits could streamline reuse site requirements for importing fill.
● More discernment for testing: costly sampling and testing requirements in the MECP Soil Rules document are excessive and should be reduced according to local QPs. Not all project areas have the same risk of contamination and should be sampled accordingly. Baseline samples should be conducted based on revised MECP Soil Rules tables for different property classification. Additional sampling should be conducted should samples exceed certain table requirements. Historically, sampling requirements were approximately 5‐10% (2020) and 10‐20% (2021) of what they are today.
● O. Reg. 406/19 and supporting documents are confusing, hindering compliance. The documents should be simplified and made user-friendly.
● Province-wide consultation with stakeholders outside of the GTA is needed. Illegal dumping is predominantly a Toronto problem, and I understand the majority of consultation for O. Reg. 406/19 occurred within the GTA. This has caused significant problems for the construction industry province-wide.
● The MECP Rules for Soil Management and Excess Quality Standards: once considered a best-practices document, this document is now included in the regulation. Included in the MECP soil rules is a little‐known excerpt that limits soil pile sizes to 2,500 cu.m. This poses many problems, including not having sufficient room onsite to stockpile fill, double handling of soil to complete cut/fill beneath the piles, closer infringement on residential neighbours, excessive emissions, drainage issues between the piles, windblown dust from much larger operations, and excessive costs.
In closing, thank you for this opportunity to articulate my concerns, shared across the Ontario construction industry. I believe the solutions offered can position the government for success because they are reasonable, environmentally sustainable, and easy to implement while a broader review of O. Reg. 406/19 occurs.