HAWK RIDGE HOMES PUBLIC MEETING IN COUNCIL CHAMBERS LAST EVENING

There were seven local citizens who spoke at last evening's public meeting including myself. Susan Bryant raised the excellent point that Hawk Ridge Homes have basically ignored and avoided all the health and safety issues in regards to the location of their proposed subdivision across Union St. from Sulco (Canada Colours) and Lanxess (Uniroyal).

I spoke to the long history of air, ground and surface water, and soil contamination both on and off the Uniroyal site. I also mentioned some horrific chemicals that they have used and poorly disposed of on their site over the decades including NDMA, DDT, Agent Orange and accompanying dioxins, lindane, parathion, and solvents en masse. All of these and more are now both on and off their site continuing to this day and likely forever contaminating the natural environment.

Pat Mclean mentioned that local developers have had zero interest in this site because they know of its history and hence these current developers will build, collect money and then get out of town. Interesting point.

Sandra Baer, former CPAC member and apparently now an APT member, spoke to buffer zones and how there was supposed to be no sensitive uses (residential) of the land within appropriate safety distances from chemical companies.

Stephanie Gertz is a Green Party candidate and she spoke to green infrastructure and how this proposed subdivision was not following green principles for sustainability etc.

Murray Haight was very concerned with buffers around the chemical companies. He wanted to know what the current buffer distance was supposed to be and he asked whether a Risk Assessment for this proposed subdivision had been completed.

Lastly Vivienne Delaney mentioned that currently there are massive trucks running along Union St. in Elmira. These trucks end up on Duke St. and Church St. where they make noise, pollute the air and clog traffic. She feels that more residential homes along Union St. will only exacerbate the problems as well as the new residents will not know ahead of time as to how people and child unfriendly Union St. is with all the heavy traffic on it.

Dan Kennally of Woolwich Township started the public meeting with a brief history of the multiple attempts to rezone and develop this former apple orchard. Councillor Merlihan mentioned the frustration of citizens coming back multiple times to speak to this issue and he asked if there was a limit to how many times developers can keep coming bacl. Councillor Merlihan also criticized the claim by the representative for Hawk Ridge Homes when she suggested that the new homes would be complimentary with the current older subdivision on College and Bauman St.

Councillor Larry Shantz briefly referenced the "kill zone" wondering if and when a new "Worst Case Scenario" was coming from Lanxess Canada as their old one for Anhydrous Ammonia was out of date. All in all it is obvious that the community are not remotely in support of this new housing location and neither is Sulco (Canada Colours) as per their written submission. Oddly there was no sign of Lanxess Canada this time around which has me somewhat concerned that perhaps some kind of sweetheart deal has been privately arranged. Very strange.