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Approved
by City Council was a motion to update our Aggregate Resource
mapping. The reason behind this move is because the old mapping
has not been updated since 1984. Described by FORCE as being
misleading, confirmed by City staff as being inadequate and now
approved by Hamilton Council to rectify, this motion directs staff to
undertake and finance the extensive studies that will identify
incompatible land uses as well as identifying other areas that have
significant resource potential with few land use conflicts.
This
is critical to us on several fronts. It speaks to the need to
identify incompatible uses in, on, and around the potential
Quarry site on the 11th Concession in Flamborough. " The Ministry of
Natural Resources (MNR) has traditionally been responsible for
producing this mapping but have refused to produce the updates leaving
the entire cost and associated justification studies to the City",
stated in their Planning Report (PED06207) June 26/06.
Conversations
with Mike Stone at the Ministry of Natural Resources led me to
investigate the work done by the County of Huron where they worked on
updating 9 Municipality's Aggregate Resource Mapping. They
undertook the work through their own City Staff and completed the
updates in one year for the entire County. Working in conjunction with
Provincial Representatives, G.I.S. mapping experts, and community
groups the team set out to identify Primary, secondary and tertiary
(third) calculations of how many constraints were identified as
obstacles to quarry extraction. They then made recommendations based on
those findings to the municipalities to adopt into their Official Plan
Policies identified as Primary or Prohibitive.
The transferred
responsibility for the mapping of geological factors took place in
1986, moving the responsibility over from the Ministry of Natural
Resources to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. In talks
with Cam Baker of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, he
confirmed that the only updates that are the responsibility of the
Ministry of Northern Development and Mines would be solely based on
geological factors and as stated before the other "identified land uses
are the responsibility of the City to uncover and finance."
So
my gratitude goes out to my Council Colleagues who approved the support
for this essential work to be undertaken to update our Aggregate
Resource Mapping. This is a good news story for the City as a whole!.
Click Here to view the motion
Margaret McCarthy, Flamborough Councillor Ward 15
905-546-2713 Fax: 905-546-2535
mmccarthy@hamilton.ca www.margaretmccarthy.ca
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