NEW PIC's !!!

The folowing are the new dates, places and times for the new series of Public InformationCentre's (PICs):

Wednesday November 26th, 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm,
Shakespeare and District Optimist Hall

Thursday November 27th, 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm,
New Hamburg Community Centre Tuesday

December 9th, 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm,
Festival Inn, Stratford

ABC Press Release for Nov. 18, 2008

Highway 7 and 8 Corridor Study

The Agricultural Business Communities of Perth East, Perth South and Wilmot West held an information meeting at the Shakespeare Optimist Hall on Tuesday November 18 to bring the community together to discuss the consultant’s plans for Highway 7 and 8 and to prepare landowners for the next step in the planning process.

This volunteer group formed in August and works on behalf of over 300 property owners to ensure adequate input into the planning of the Highway 7 and 8 corridor. The group has two goals. We act to inform rural landowners within the study area about the planning process and we act to influence the planning process by educating the consultants about the nature of agriculture. Previous community meetings in the summer brought together 250 concerned individuals.

The three Agricultural Business Committees are disappointed that in this day and age any arm of the provincial government or consultants working on their behalf could fail so dramatically to understand agriculture as anything but a business. The Phase 1 reports showed almost complete disregard for the local economy, businesses and community resulting from highway development through agricultural lands. The draconian, inaccurate and outdated methodology used to address agriculture must be changed.

The Agricultural Business Communities documented initial concerns from the community and submitted a Questions document in early September. A disappointing response was received November 7.

On September 30 a Brief was delivered to the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) identifying several inadequacies in the Phase 1 Consultant Reports. The Brief outlined the nature of agriculture within their study area and provided an accurate understanding of the losses and costs if they proceeded with their misguided options. We have not yet received a response to the Brief.

The Consulting Team claims to be receptive to our participation in the planning process and we feel we have experienced some success influencing the study approach

We will continue to work on behalf of our community and our rural business owners until this project is finalized.

Community Information Meeting

HWY 7 & 8 CORRIDOR STUDY UPDATE

COMMUNITY INFORMATION MEETING

Everyone Welcome!

This meeting is organized by the volunteers of the Agriculture Business Communities of Perth East, Perth South and Wilmot West.

Tuesday, NOV. 18TH, 2008

SHAKESPEARE OPTIMIST HALL, SHAKESPEARE, ON

DOORS OPEN: 7:30 PM

COFFEE: 7:45 PM

MEETING STARTS PROMPTLY AT 8 PM

We would appreciate a donation of $2.00 - $5.00 to defray cost of hall rental etc.

What are the next steps for the Ministry of Transportation and the Consultants?

What are our next steps and how should we respond?

Everyone Welcome. Bring your neighbours , your questions and ideas

THIS MEETING IS FOR YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY.

THERE WILL BE NO MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION OR CONSULTANTS PRESENT.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Prologue

1. A Visitor’s View

2. Misleading Underlying Assumptions

a. Population projections as an underlying Assumption
b. Greater Stratford Area
c. When does the existing economy count?
d. Unsubstantiated Issues
e. Where is the existing community recognized?
f. We Applaud This Direction
g.Wetlands Trump Agriculture
h. Evaluation Principles Lacking

3. Provincial Legislation, Regulations and Policies Affecting Agriculture

a. Nutrient Management Act, 2002
b. Nutrient Management Strategy
c. Nutrient Management Plan (NMP), O. Reg. 267/03
d. Nutrient Management Protocol, August 12, 2005
e. Municipal Drains

4. Agribusiness in the Study Area

a. Agricultural Business in the Study Area
b. Industry Production Figures

5. The ‘Culture’ of Agriculture

a. The Land
b. The People
c. The Economy

6. Conclusions and Directions for Consulting Team and the MTO

Volume 2 Community Report

Submitted to Totten Sims Hubicki Associates (TSH) and the Ministry of Transportation for the response period ending Sept. 30th, 2008.

Introduction

Unfortunately, agriculture and impacts to it are often left out of many equations. The agricultural business community of the three townships decided this was not right or fair.

The townships of Wilmot, South Easthope and Downie are all key areas impacted by the Highway 7 and 8 Corridor Study. During the Public Information phase (# 2) very few area residents took advantage of the opportunity to visit the Centres and see what may be happening for themselves. A variety of reasons were the root causes of such seeming disinterest. The meeting times set for these information meetings were NOT appropriate for the rural community and farmers in particular. As well many in the community felt for the past number of years that something had to be done about the old highway and assumed it would be confined to the area already reserved for highway widening, since the Ministry of Transportation purchased land and moved homes many years ago for this purpose.

Some residents managed to attend the PIC’s and discovered the scope of the apparent plan. They took action, called a meeting of residents in the middle of the busy summer season and had 155 people show up to hear about what might be happening. The group met and formalized into the Agricultural Business Community of Perth East, the Agricultural Business Community of Perth South and the Agricultural Business Community of Wilmot West.

Each group decided on their focus, chose representative names, found volunteers in the community and began its work. Since that point, more and more residents in all three townships have joined their respective chapters. The ability to get information to members quickly was established via email. Other community meetings were organized and over 300 area residents and businesses are now part of these growing community organizations.

Prologue

The Agricultural Business Community of Perth East, the Agricultural Business Community of Perth South and the Agricultural Business Community of Wilmot believe the nature of the Agricultural Sector within the study area is seriously misrepresented in the consultant reports. The criteria used as the foundation in the decision making model to determine the proposed corridor options is therefore inadequate and inaccurate.


We understand the study process moves from a more general level of information to more specific detail as the preferred corridor is chosen and the route selected. However, the beginning of the study is the time when fundamental planning principles and guidelines should be identified. These principles lay the foundation for the entire planning process. An accurate understanding of the study area is required to do this.


The community has come together using information collected from the agricultural producers, members of the community, Statistics Canada data, official plans, agricultural organizations and provincial legislation and regulations to present a more transparent understanding of the resources of the study area. Much of this was available to the consulting team in the development of the first round of reports.


The founding legislative and policy guidelines must be applicable to the area under study. Due to the significance of agriculture within the study area and its Provincial if not National significance, several key pieces of legislation governing the practice of farming are absent from the reports. These should have been recognized in the early identification of study principles and foundation documents that the study builds on. This is a major shortcoming and leads to an almost complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the resources and community within the study area.

We believe there are three distinct areas of investigation to be addressed under the broad heading of Agriculture. Agricultural land capability, the consultant has recognized, agricultural business which is completely missing and agri-culture, which has been mentioned but not understood. These factors intertwine within the study area.

If there was a land use category for Provincially Significant Agricultural Business Communities, much of the study area would be designated Class 1+.

A Visitor’s View

In order to appreciate the statistics to be presented in this report, it is useful to stand back from it all and take a bird's- eye view. Suppose we are a first-time visitor arriving at Pearson airport. We are picked up by car and driven to Stratford. What do we see?

For the first 50 kilometers or so of 401 West our visitor sees massive urban growth and heavy 24/7 traffic rushing by on one of the busiest urban corridors in the world. Around Milton our visitor sees the breathtaking Niagara Escarpment and traffic density reduces a little as green space increases. Past the Highway #6 exits (to Guelph and Hamilton) development and traffic density reduces further until the Cambridge interchanges, the gateway to Waterloo Region. Once again, heavy commercial, big box and factory activity is highly visible and this appearance of rapid urban development continues on the # 8 exit to Kitchener/Waterloo and along onto the # 7/8 West exit towards Stratford. When our visitor passes Trussler Road on 7/8 the highway and the landscape broadens into a more leisurely four lane 90 kilometer per hour pace. So far our hypothetical passenger has not stopped moving unless they got caught in gridlock.

At the New Hamburg exits a series of traffic lights slow up the four lanes and define a strong commercial zone. New housing developments are also visible, a response to the job dynamo that is Waterloo region. Then, just past Walker Road a big curve in the highway signals a significant qualitative change in the landscape and its use value. Looking west and north and south our visitor sees only farms and small rural residential properties. The big curve ends with a new set of traffic lights at Road 101 to Tavistock.

Highway 7/8 then dramatically changes into a two lane thoroughfare with traffic being forced to squeeze under the CN overpass. But, except for the village of Shakespeare, the landscape both north and south of 7/8 remains rural and agricultural with large wooded sections all the way to the edge of Stratford.

For our visitor, the highway from New Hamburg to Stratford may superficially look like a twenty-five kilometer corridor of 'green and pleasant land', and for many residents this is why they choose to live here. But in fact, as the statistics will show, it is a 25 kilometer corridor of very intensive agricultural business activity. This corridor contains several of the most productive farm operations in the province and some of the most expensive agricultural properties in North America. It is therefore no accident that our traveler occasionally notices a road-side sign that says, 'Farmers feed cities'.

Highly productive farms require good land, low surrounding population densities and minimal development pressures on the critical land and forest base. West of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), three counties have high agricultural land capabilities, low population densities and low development pressures. These are Perth, Oxford, and Huron. These three counties are undisputed agricultural business powerhouses and this applies particularly to the dairy, beef, hog, and poultry industries. While Waterloo region contains townships where agri-business is a dominant economic factor, and while Wilmot Township is certainly one of these, in the overall scheme of things, Waterloo region has evolved into a largely urbanized municipality.

Thus the municipal boundaries dividing the twin cities of Kitchener/Waterloo and Wilmot Township mark a definite qualitative shift in perceptions of land use from urban use to rural agricultural. The second municipal boundary that divides Waterloo Region and Perth County serves to reinforce that qualitative shift. Due to these very old settlement patterns it is therefore no accident that Wilmot, Perth East and Perth South are major provincial agri-business centres.