Residents turn to appeal board to stop rock excavation
Published Thursday July 23rd, 2009
Residents of the Claudie Road area have filed 22 appeals with New Brunswick's Asssessment and Planning Appeal Board in a bid to block the operation of a temporary gravel pit at the end of their street.
No date has been set for a hearing by the board, but Marg Zimmerman, a spokeswoman for the neighbours, said the board has indicated it is willing to hear their case.
New Brunswick's Rural and District Planning Commission, which approved an application from Valley Aggregates Ltd. to excavate rock from 3.9-hectaress of a 62-hectare property at the end of Claudie Road, has agreed to file its response by July 27, Zimmerman said.
After getting wind of the gravel-pit project, residents created a petition and contacted city and provincial government officials.
Neighbours called a public meeting at the end of May, which was attended by Larry Jewett, on behalf of Valley Aggregates Ltd., owner Terry Bird of Burtts Corner, and by provincial officials.
Fredericton-Nashwaaksis MLA T.J. Burke, also attended the session, but told the group he doesn't have the authority to shut down the gravel extraction venture.
He told the residents that he will ensure environment department rules are followed in its operation.
While Jewett said the property owner was prepared to negotiate voluntary trucking limits from the site, residents chose to go the appeal-board route to try to block the project in its entirety.
"That's where it stands now, but as the days chug by, he (Bird) still has not started transporting any of that rock out yet," Zimmerman said.
"We were able to determine that it's going to involve 15,400 trips to transport 100,000 tonnes of rock. It's a lot of rock."
Zimmerman said based on their figures, that could mean as many as 80 truck trips per day on Claudie Road.
Valley Aggregates received a one-year temporary-use approval from the Rural District Planning Commission to mine out the rock prior to starting development of a 320-lot residential subdivision.
The company told the planning commission that much of the rock will be used to create the internal road system for the subdivision and to prepare building lots.
But, the company has not ruled out blasting to loosen the rock and it may crush rock on-site.
The proposed pit would operate from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with excess gravel to be sold off to buyers, including the City of Fredericton.
Claudie Road residents are caught in a jurisdictional connundrum because the pit and proposed subdivision are located outside city limits, but their homes and the paved portion of Claudie Road are located within the City of Fredericton.
Residents say their street isn't designed to take the beating that gravel-laden trucks will produce. They're concerned about the safety of neighbourhood children and say they already have enough truck traffic on their street as cement trucks have a wash-out area atop Claudie Road.
Zimmerman said they had the assistance of a local lawyer who helped the community prepare two legal documents to submit to the board.
Although they missed the original appeal board deadline, Zimmerman said they complained to the board that they were denied due process when the original application was considered by the commission.
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