News Aggregates
More pit restrictions coming for Caledon area

CALEDON, Ont. — The Town of Caledon is seeking to impose more restrictions on aggregate companies and pits in the area. 

Two motions put before council this month looked to have continued restrictions or sought to impose new ones within the town’s borders.  

At a planning committee meeting on Sept. 19, council approved a motion to extend an interim control by-law (ICBL) preventing new licenses from being issued and new pits from opening in Caledon. The initial ICBL was put into place last year and was due to expire Oct. 17. 

The initial ICBL was put in place to allow town staff to conduct studies on aggregate resources, as well as noise and air pollution in the area and included an option to extend the pause for another year. Staff said the motion took advantage of that extension. 

Currently, the mineral-rich area is home to 19 pits and four quarries with active licenses. 

In the same meeting Mayor Annette Groves introduced a motion asking the Government of Ontario to support a minimum distance between pits and quarries. 

The motion recognized the area as a target for more licenses, comprising up to 10 per cent of the total area of Caledon, because the town is located close to GTA road building projects, housing starts and other construction and infrastructure projects in need of the materials.  

The motion calls on the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, and Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to support the approval of the Caledon official plan by the Region of Peel with the establishment of the new minimum distances. 

The motion does not outline what the minimum distances would be, or how they would be established, but says there should be a “positive criteria for minimum influence areas and separation distances” between the quarries and pits themselves, as well as residential areas, agriculture areas and other sensitive land uses.  

The Caledon official plan already uses the provincial Minimum Distance Standard (MDS) formula for determining the minimum distances of agriculturally zoned land from residential and other sensitive areas. 

The second motion was also passed.