I support this proposed…

I support this proposed amendment. It has never made sense to me that 5 residential lots of 1 acre each can contain 5 septic systems, but my 50 acre lot can only contain one. Clearly, a second (or more) system would not likely create more environmental impact than those 5 residential systems, and that's being generous considering residential lots are often smaller than 1 acre. Regarding the discussion questions:

1) On the 10 acre circular clearance, properties don't come in circles, so trying to fit circles into them isn't likely to be effective. Please use minimum straight line distance setbacks, just like other aspects of the building code. A 10 acre circle would have a radius of 113.5 metres. That is an extremely large set back- more than a football field in every direction seems excessive. A 50 metre setback from such features as surface water seems adequate regarding environmental protection. Again, residential lots with septic systems have dramatically smaller setback requirements. Setbacks from existing buildings on the same property should be much smaller. Why would the farm worker housing be required to be so far away from the actual farm house? That makes no sense. Similarly, a requirement to be so far from the road (usually, a property boundary) is inappropriate. This would require significant additional land to be used for driveways, and also require significant aggregate resources (and cost) to create them. There is no reason to require a minimum setback from an existing residential or storage building on the same property. Allow the property owner to decide what is best on their property. A 50 metre setback from non-road property boundaries may be useful, in terms of protecting neighbouring properties, though it still seems excessive. For property boundaries that align with roads, whatever existing setbacks are present for septic systems or residential structures would seem appropriate for this proposal. Drinking water wells pose an additional quandary. It makes sense to require a sizable setback from drinking water wells, generally speaking, but it does not make sense to require 113.5 metre separation from a drinking water well that would supply the farm worker housing. That's a lot of underground piping. I would suggest 50 metres is sufficient for other existing wells, but for a well that supplies the farm worker housing, whatever existing setbacks for residential systems/wells should be sufficient.

2) It should be an option to allow a smaller system (say 5000L/d) with a smaller setback than a 10000L/d system. An all or nothing approach will restrict many farm properties from being able to do something. Maybe something like 5 metres per 1000L/d, perhaps with a specified minimum, would be workable.

Overall, this is a good idea, and even more so given the current housing crisis. Finding off site housing for workers in rural areas is nearly impossible and extremely expensive. Those workers then take away housing opportunities from local residents, a potential source of conflict in our communities. There's usually no public transport available, so providing transport for the workers is also necessary if they reside off site. Agricultural lots can clearly accommodate workers on site in a positive manner. Additional impacts for septic systems would be much less than what occurs from typical residential development, or even many existing farm uses. Please move forward but in a way that does not limit this possibility to only the very large farm lots. Smaller operations need staff, too.