Championing Local Initiatives to Safeguard Our Future

Legal Review of Cramahe Townships “Official Plan” with respect to Municipal Road use.

In support of CRAA Civil Engineering Report

The CRAA has provided Council with a Civil Engineering Report, providing the Township with detailed information about current road conditions and the impact that the Asphalt plant would have on our road network. We have made clear that the return to the Township for allowing this proposal to proceed would could cause major damage to roads not suited for Industrial use. We have also made clear that little if any income would be generated by the project that would offset the costs of road maintenance. Ultimately the result is increased Tax loads for residents. Tax loads to support a “For Profit” organization.

And again, Council is again choosing to avoid and evade any commitment.

Use of Telephone Road as a Heavy Truck Haulage Route is Not Permitted

In the Northumberland County Official Plan, approved as of November 23, 2016, Telephone Road is not identified as an established truck haul route for asphalt. In fact, it is not even identified in Schedule C as a local arterial road, let alone a truck haulage route. Indeed, the only designation of Telephone Road in Schedule C is that it forms part of the County Cycling Network, which would seem to be incompatible with use as a truck haul route for asphalt.

Section D5.5.2 of that Plan also provides that if a new haul route is proposed, it shall only be approved if the applicant has demonstrated that specified conditions related to the proposed route have been met, including (by way of example, only) requirements related to the effect of additional truck traffic on safety, sensitive land uses along the route, road classification, surface and other physical characteristics, and the impacts of noise, odour, dust and vibration on adjacent land uses. This is consistent with Provincial

Policy Statement 2024 of the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, which requires that new industrial uses should not have “adverse effects” on “sensitive land uses”, including but not limited to residences (sections 2.8.2(2) and 3.5(2)).

Council and the community have repeatedly requested information respecting these requirements, but the proponent has persistently failed or refused to provide it.

The proponent has also not demonstrated that its proposed use of Telephone Road for these purposes meets applicable Provincial standards, such as the December 2011 guidelines of the Ontario Trucking Association found in Local Truck Routes: A Guide for Municipal Officials.

Further, while the Cramahe and Northumberland Official Plan do expressly permit the use of portable batch asphalt plants in certain areas such as operating aggregate pits, subject to these and other specified conditions, they contain no provision permitting the use or operation of permanent asphalt plants of the kind proposed.

4. It is not Clear What Fee, If Any, will be Payable to the Township

The proponent has not provided the community with a copy of its existing permit for gravel extraction, but it has previously suggested that the same fee will continue be payable as at present, once the site is operating as an asphalt plant. That fee is pennies per ton. However, this was apparently contradicted by the proponent’s planning consultant at the meeting with Council held on February 11, 2025.

At that meeting, the consultant referred to the wording of the current fee as applying to extracted gravel, not to asphalt to be produced at the proposed plant.  He also suggested this fee would be paid on gravel extracted from other gravel pits in the Township, that provide gravel to the proposed asphalt plant, rather than on the asphalt it produces. This suggested that no additional fee at all will be payable to the Township from production at the proposed plant. The only fee payments will be from other gravel pits in the Township that supply gravel to the proposed plant.

Council’s questions about the amounts of the gravel extraction fees paid historically, and estimates of amounts payable under the new proposal, have not been answered.