Huron County Council Directs Planning Department To Implement Huron County Aggregate Strategy - Scoped Update Into The Local Official Plans Through Future Five Year Reviews
by Bob Montgomery
Huron County council has directed the Planning Department to implement the Huron County Aggregate Strategy – Scoped Update into the local official plans through the future five year reviews.
The project was prompted by a 2022 resolution from the Township of Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh, requesting that Huron County Council direct Planning & Development staff to undertake a review and update of the Huron County Aggregate Strategy. In undertaking the Five Year Review of the ACW Official Plan, there was significant dialogue between staff, council, and the public regarding aggregate approvals process. Planning & Development staff identified updating the Huron County Aggregate Strategy as an opportunity to revisit the County’s approach and to promote better understanding of the process.
Planning Manager Denise Van Amersfoort says in most areas where two land uses bump into each other there is the potential for conflict, but she says if both sides have an understanding of the other and an idea of what to expect, that can reduce the potential for conflict. But the potential is there and it applies to a number of situations, like agriculture and cottage areas, or aggregates and rural properties. Van Amersfoort adds, it's important to remember that aggregates are non-renewable resources that are critical for housing and infrastructure construction. And, aggregate abstraction is in fact regulated by the province, municipalities have a relatively small role to play in the overall approval process.
Van Amersfoort also notes the Aggregate Strategy was approved by county council back in 2005, so this technical update was meant to reflect what has changed in terms of legislation, policy, and practice over the last twenty years. She says the updated strategy establishes a clear process by which local municipalities can identify and protect aggregate deposits, highlighting those that have the highest potential for stream-lined approval. So they've updated the strategy to reflect the direction of the 2024 provincial planning statement and they're really trying to balance the public interest in aggregate, agriculture and natural environment.
Van Amersfoort says the Auditor-General’s report in December of 2023 indicated that the province has had problems in retaining the number of inspectors they need across the province, and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario sent a letter in April of 2024 to the province pointing out that regular inspections are important in terms of maintaining public trust. Even aggregate operators want those inspections because they want their industry to have a good reputation.
She also notes that we tend to think of Huron County as playing a significant role in the production of aggregate across the province, but as of 2021, Huron County represented 2.5 percent of the aggregate produced in Ontario. In that year 167 million metric tons of aggregate was produced in the province and Huron County only produced four million metric tons, with forty percent of that abstraction is coming from Ashfield-Corborne-Wawanosh.
