Town council will formally object to a plan by neighbouring Bruce County to de-register all locally significant wetlands in its official plan.
Deputy mayor Terry Fisk raised the issue at the Oct. 21 Minto council meeting in response to a notice of a Nov. 20 public meeting in Walkerton on the changes that was included in council correspondence.
Treasurer Gordon Duff provided an update at the Nov. 4 meeting.
While Duff noted, “It’s downstream from us, so Minto doesn’t have a direct interest,” he said Minto staff and council members reviewed some of the comments received by Bruce County about the plan “and a lot of them were not too positive.”
Minto Chief Building Official Terry Kuipers said the de-registered areas will still carry a hazard designation, “so it’s still going to restrict development in those areas.”
However, Kuipers pointed out he had read reports from several conservation authorities and none of them are in favor of the plan.
“My reading of it is Bruce County has an uphill battle in order to get this approved.”
Councillor Mary Lou Colwell asked what the county’s reasoning for making the change could be.
“Unfortunately I don’t know that,” replied Kuipers. “They didn’t have their planning report available to us, so I could not even think of a reason why they would want to remove that designation.”
Fisk expressed concern about any move that could negatively impact wetlands.
“We need to be very careful about what we do with our wetlands, whether they’re local or regional or provincial or federal,” said Fisk. “This is where our water is recharged. Right now we don’t have a water problem but the day is going to come when we do and if these wetlands have been destroyed or not been kept up or protected then there’s going to be an issue with the quality of water.”
Fisk said some jurisdictions are even developing wetlands because of their value in flood prevention.
“Even though this doesn’t affect us directly, I think our voice needs to be heard that we’re not in favour of this,” he stated. “These wetlands are out in the middle of nowhere. I just don’t understand why they would even want to bother wasting the ink on the paper to change it.”
A motion by Colwell to put council’s opposition to the proposal in writing was seconded by councillor Rick Hembly and passed unopposed.
An amendment proposing to delete sections of the Bruce official plan that deal with locally significant wetlands and also delete them from the constraint map was introduced to Bruce County council in September. Currently development planned within 60 metres of a locally significant wetland requires an environmental impact study to determine the effect of the development on the wetland.
