Region wants quarry owners to dig deeper

The Region wants pit and quarry owners to start digging a little deeper-- into their pockets, that is. A new $100,000 fee that'll help cover regional staff costs associated with processing pit and quarry applications was approved by Halton council at its recent meeting . A staff report that went before the Region's planning and public works committee last week explains the current application fees paid for new or expanding pits or quarries only total about $12,000. This covers Official Plan and zoning bylaw amendments. "Data collected regarding the amount of time spent by regional employees processing these applications has shown that pits' and quarries' applications are far more complex and time consuming than reflected in the fee for typical planning applications," the report notes. It goes on to provide examples, such as the 814 hours spent in one year working on Nelson Aggregates' quarry application and 259 hours on Hanson Brick's expansion proposal. Staff also estimates that in the end, a total of 1,036 hours will be required to finish processing Hanson's application at a cost of $87,821, while Nelson's is expected to take 3,256 hours for $276,011. Currently, the Town of Milton is the only municipality in the GTA that has a separate fee of $59,529 for processing pit and quarry applications.