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Page THE HERALD Wednesday March Town council at odds over garbage issue By BEN DUMMETT The Herald Despite an apparent consensus among a majority of Halton Hills councillors to oppose a proposal by Georgetowns Transfer Station Limited to dou ble the amount of garbage it handles council is unsure what action to take During Monday nights Town Council meeting Councillor Al Cooke appeared to speak for several councillors when he said we councillors dont want to expand its opera tion however is there sufficient grounds for a provinciallymn hearing to be held on the pro posal Coun Cooke made his com ments in response to a presenta tion by Barbara Farm land a major issue at Regional committee meeting The issue of farm land was at the centre of Mondays Region Planning and Public WorksCommittee meeting on the Regions Official Plan Review Hills Regional Coun cillor and Committee member Joe Hewitt said in an interview following the meeting several area farmers appeared before the committee protesting a Regional Planning Staff proposal to redesignate certain rural- zoned lands in to agriculturalzoned land In accordance with provincial legislation the Region is obligated to review its Official Plan every five years This is the first such review since the plans inception in 1985 Regional Planning Staff sug gesting the plan be changed as proposed so that agricultural land is better protected By changing the zoning of farmland from rural to agricultural staff maintain it will be harder for Regional Council to approve amendments that permit development on farm land Mr Hewitt says farmers argue that greater financial protection should be offered to farmers if the Region wants to protect area agricultural lands Agreeing with the farmers position Coun Hewitt said the issue of farm land protection comes down to economics rather than a zoning designation Coun Hewitt said farmeers are saying that under current economic conditions a lot of fanners cant afford to continue farming Right now there is more farmland in Halton laying dor mant than actually being farmed said the Councillor The income of farmers is decreasing while their expenses are increasing added Coun Hewitt Coun Hewitt said the fanners told committee members the Region should lobby the provin cial and federal government to introduce more income maintenance policies such as farm subsidy and rebate pro grams to protect farm land from development Meanwhile farmers were a lit tle more receptive to staffs sug gestion that the Official Plan be changed to make it more difficult for farmers to obtain a retire ment land severance on their pro perty The farmers appearing before committee agreed with staff that the current farm severance policies should be tightened said Coun Hewitt However farmers disagree with staff that retire ment land severances be totally banned Current Region policy states only bona fide farmers those who been fanning for years can sever a part of their property for retirement pur poses Staff argue the practice should be eliminated because it is being abused Coun Hewitt said the farmers ihink the policy wouldnt be abus ed if a bona fide farmer was defined as someone who has fanned a piece of land for years As well once receiving a severance the farmer was not allowed to sell it he said Committee members will meet todav Wednesday to further discuss the ideas put forth during Mondays meeting The Official Plan Review isnt expected to be completed until late this year or early 1992 dent of local environmental group Protect Our Water En vironmental Resources who called on Council to overturn last weeks Town General Committee recom mendation and outright oppose the application Leferink has requested permis sion from the Ministry of En vironment to accept tonnes of garbage daily from anywhere in the province instead of the cur rent amount of tonnes it now handles In considering the ap plication the has asked Town Council to comment on the proposal In the end council directed staff to write a report on the con cerns raised by several coun cillors about the application and what information would council need to provide to support a re quest the hold a hearing on the application Some concerns staff must con sider in writing the report in clude the effects of an increase in truck traffic around the Town the fact that Hills doesnt support the handling of garbage created from outside its Region and that the Town has no idea in what landfill the garbage will end up once it passes through Councils staff recommenda tion followed directly from Ms Halsalls presentation She told councillors support should not be given for handling garbage pro duced from outside its area because it fails to encourage from outside areas to im plement reduction and recycling projects in their own areas Although Acton Norm Elliot supported Councils staff direction he suggested Ms Halsall is dreaming if she thinks its realistic to say municipalities in the short run shouldnt be allowed to ship gar bage outside their borders to be buried People are still too wasteful for this to happen he commented Fire Calls Minor fires reported Halton Hills firefighters responded to three small fires this week At pm Saturday afternoon firefighters were called to ex tinguish a dryer fire at a Boulevard home When they arrived the owner had already turned the power off and extinguished the blaze so the department helped the owners remove the heavily damaged ap pliance from their home Later the same day a barbecue fire started at a Drive but it too was extinguished before firefighters arrived The department has no estimate of damage Firefighters were called out one last time on the weekend when it was reported a blue recycling bin filled with newspapers had been set on fire at the Georgetown GO station The department extinguished the small blaze believing the fire be set by vandals jib SHOP FOR Scute IN DOWNTOWN GEORGETOWN EASTER BUNNY IN DOWNTOWN GEORGETOWN SATURDAY MARCH 3091 1100 PHB TO 100 PM a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a HAPPY EflSTEfl SALE LADIES with the purchase ROYAL ROBBINS SHORTS MY 115 MAIN ST SOUTH DOWNTOWN GEORGETOWN 8732851 EASTER DRESSES HAVE ARRIVED Victoria Lane JOIN US Saturday March 30th for Balloons Candy 70 MAIN ST S Downtown Georgetown 8732452 Q a a