Town of Caledon withdraws objection against proposed development of Erin Pit

Written By ALYSSA PARKHILL

A proposed expansion to the Erin Pit, owned an operated by Bolton's James Dick Construction, has been given the green light by Caledon Council. 

A decision more than three years in the making, Council voted in favour of adopting town staff's recommendation to withdraw an objection if filed against the expansion back in 2017. 

A zoning bylaw amendment application was filed on behalf of James Dick Construction on April 26, 2017, proposing an addition to the existing Erin Pit operation, which is located across Winston Church Boulevard in the Town of Erin. 

The Town of Caledon filed an objection against that application shortly after its submission, under the Aggregate Resources Act (ARA) Licence Application with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Both the Region of Peel and Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) stood alongside the Town of Caledon in voicing their objections. 

Since then, the Region of Peel, CVC and Town of Caledon have been working alongside James Dick Construction to resolve issues on the ARA License Site Plans.

Caledon Council held a public meeting this past Tuesday to discuss a report from staff recommending that the Town of Caledon withdraw their objection. Staff now contend that the application to expand the Erin Pit is satisfactory. 

“The applications were filed in the spring of 2017, so it's coming up on three years ago. Plans for the next stage of resource management at this property goes almost 60 years when the lands were first purchased for aggregate extraction 40 years ago and are designated in the Town of Caledon Official Plan and they remain designated ever since over the past 20 years,” explained James Parkin, MHBC Planning. 

The current Erin Pit operation is located just north of Wellington Road 42 and extends from 10th Line to Winston Churchill Boulevard. IT currently extracts a maximum of 925,000 tonnes per year.

The amendment is to process a new gravel pit operation that will transition work from the currently Erin Pit operation and extract aggregate below the groundwater table of an annual rate of 1.8 million tonnes per year.

Town of Caledon staff brought in experts and had several studies done in each area of specifics for the application and are now recommending Council to withdraw their objection and move forward with the application. 

Son-in-law of James Dick, George Sweetnam, spoke about the work the company fulfills for the town as well as what the next steps are going forward.

“If we have our aggregate resources within our own town, we can build that community using resources, employment, generating taxes and generating aggregate resource levies from within our own township boundaries,” said Sweetnam. “If we don't license lands within our own township's boundaries, we're still going to have the trucks but we're not going to have any of the employment. We're not going have any aggregate resource levies and none of the taxes.” 

He added, “it makes sense to approve these long-term projects like the Erin Pit expansion so that we can continue to build our communities from within and have control.”

Several members of the community attended the meeting, a couple of them presenting delegations to council. Council did not have any comments or questions for the delegations.

The amendment was moved by Mayor Thompson, and seconded by Ward 3 and 4 Regional Councillor Jennifer Innis, and carried by the rest of council. 

For more information about the Erin Pit expansion, please visit caledon.ca.