The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) hearing regarding the Rockwood quarry proposal by James Dick Construction Limited (JDCL) will begin on Sept. 27 at 10:30am in the Guelph Eramosa council chamber.
The hearing could last between five and seven weeks.
The quarry process began in December 2012 when JDCL applied to rezone lands southeast of Rockwood – from agriculture and hazard land to extractive industrial – to make way for a quarry.
The proposed quarry site is at Highway 7 and 6th Line in Guelph-Eramosa, just east of Rockwood and west of Acton.
JDCL, which proposes to mine 700,000 tonnes of dolomite rock annually over a projected 17 years, applied for both a zoning bylaw amendment and an Aggregate Resources Act license.
However, the decision on the zoning bylaw amendment was taken out of the municipality’s hands in June 2015 when JDCL filed an appeal to the OMB.
In October council made the unanimous decision to advise the OMB it opposed the hidden quarry application as it stood at the time, despite a report from township planning consultant Elizabeth Howson of Macaulay Shiomi Howson Ltd. recommending council advise the OMB it approves the quarry application in-principle, subject to specific conditions being met.
In June 2016 the municipality chose not to appear as a party at the OMB proceedings but gave $70,000 to the Concerned Residents Coalition (CRC) to fight the quarry on behalf of the citizens of Rockwood. The money came from the Rockwood Hydro Fund.
The parties objecting to the proposal who will appear at the hearing include the CRC, the Town of Halton Hills and the Regional Municipality of Halton.
Guelph Eramosa Township and the Town of Milton also object to the proposal, but will not be parties.
For more on the OMB hearing visit http://elto.gov.on.ca/omb/e-status and enter case number PL150494.
