News clips: County hearing on Beeton Woods

Simcoe County council defers Beeton forest decision

By Brad Pritchard Alliston Herald April 14 2015

Warden Gerry Marshal announced the verdict after council discussed the matter in a closed session with the county solicitor.

He said the stop work order the county issued March 3 will remain in effect until council revisits the matter at a May 12 meeting.

The six-hour meeting began with a presentation by the county’s forester Graeme Davis, who shed light as to why proper notification wasn’t given to area residents prior to the special permit being granted in January.

In normal circumstances he said notification would have been made near the beginning of an application. But he said the application became more complicated since it involved the removal of endangered butternut trees, and had been ongoing for about three years.

“This interruption in the normal process may have unfortunately contributed to an error in procedure where formal notification was not sent to abutting landowners,” Davis said.

The lawyer representing the property owners, Ian Rowe, spoke at the beginning of the meeting and was given the opportunity to respond to comments made by the Town of New Tecumseth’s solicitor Jay Feehely.

Rowe argued there were no legal grounds to issue the stop work order.

“That process (notifying residents) was entirely in the hands of the county and my client cannot be faulted for certain processes that were not followed,” he said.

Feehely argued that the permit shouldn’t have been issued since the property owner didn’t disclose what he said were “active development plans” for the property.

According to New Tecumseth, the property owner filed an application for an Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment in 2003. At the time, the town was reviewing growth potential in Beeton and did not process the applications.
New Tecumseth council adopted the Beeton Community Secondary Plan in 2005, and the County approved the Plan in 2006. The Plan was then appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) by several parties, including the Rizzardos, who later withdrew their appeal, and the Plan received approval from the OMB in 2007.

“As long as they have development plans we don’t believe their right to cut down the trees should exist,” Feehely said.

He also said the developer refilled their development plans after the special tree cutting permit was issued, which raised more questions about the intentions for the property.

“Either you are a farmer or you’re not, so if you want to be a farmer then withdraw your development application,” he said.

The town didn’t offer more comments when the application was put forward because Feehely said “it was out of sight, out of mind” since the development application had been dormant since 2008.

He also said town staff deferred the matter to the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority for their expertise to comment.

Rowe said the town should have known all of the issues at hand.

“If there were legitimate concerns the town should have raised them years ago,” he said.

Rowe maintains that the property owners want to clear the trees to expand an existing agricultural operation for a farmer who leases the land.

“Nobody is trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes over what my client’s long-term intentions are,” he said.

During the hearing county council heard from a number of residents in opposition to the tree cutting.

One of them was Gary Coleman, who owns a property near the site that has about 80 acres of trees managed by the province’s forestry protection program.

“To cut down this forest is like cutting off your head to make yourself shorter, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said.

One of the issues raised was that an archeological assessment of the site wasn’t done, despite there being four areas of significance being identified near the land.

Rowe said his client would be willing to undertake the study if one is requested.

County reserves decision on Rizzardo appeal to May 12, stop order remains

New Tecumseth Free Press Online April 15, 2015
Nearly five hours of deputations by 14 speakers, including lawyers for both sides of a stop work order appeal, was followed by approximately 45 minutes of in camera deliberations, then ended in the 6th hour when Simcoe County Warden Gerry Marshall announced the fate of approximately 30 acres of woodlot in Beeton would remain unsettled at least until May 12 when councillors assemble again to vote on a decision.

In the interim, Tecumseth Estates remains prohibited from clearing any more trees, which, as the Rizzardo family’s legal representative, Ian Rowe, noted in his opening submissions, “is the first time that the County has ever issued a stop work order against a party who obtained a perfectly valid special permit, and was fully compliant with the conditions and terms of that permit, and we still do not understand, or have been advised of any legal basis for the issuance of this stop work order.”

County Forester Graeme Davis opened the hearing yesterday morning that started at 11 am, with an overview of the upper tier’s Forestry Bylaw, first passed in 1970, the approval process that issued a Special Permit to Tecumseth Estates for clearing 35 acre woodlot from its 9th Line property, and subsequent stop work issue.

In his presentation, Mr. Davis accepted fault for not notifying the adjacent neighbours of the Rizzardo property, that would have included them at the beginning of the decision-making process, rather than learning from media reports first published here, that the permit was granted.

“Unfortunately it contributed to an error in procedure, where formal notification was not sent to the landowners. I’m not making any excuses, and I accept full and complete responsibilty for that area, but there was a long drawn out process here, and unfortunately that may have contributed to that formal notification process that wasn’t followed,” said Mr. Davis.

“In February 2015, we became aware at that time, based on some complaints that were coming in, and recognized that we had erred in that formal notification process. It had not been followed per bylaw. And information was received regarding potential archelogical resources which could be impacted by the tree clearing, and it was at that time that we felt we had to issue a stop work order to ensure that we had all the information that was necessary, and that if something was missing, we had an opportunity to assess.”

Mr. Rowe told County councillors the Rizzardo’s are a family business, and home builders for 40 years.

“They live locally, they hire locally, they buy their supplies locally, and as a result of the nature of their business, they own hundreds of acres of land being farmed in Simcoe County and Peel, and get the favourable tax rates for farmland. It’s a routine practice,” said Mr. Rowe. “They’ve done everything correctly…. There has been no allegation by the County or any other party of any contravention my client has committed regarding this permit. The rationale is that information may have been incomplete or incorrect. No one has provided my client as to what matter it was incomplete or incorrect. That should be sufficient to allow the appeal and revoke that order. …. My client dotted every I, and crossed every T, yet here were are. All of these agencies accepted the recommendations and signed off on this permit. … and if you look at the bylaw, and if you look at what the grounds were for the stop work order, none of those grounds apply to my client. And no one has alleged that my client has done anything wrong.”

Beeton residents opposed to the application also turned out in large numbers filling the spectator gallery, and making 11 separate presentations to County councillors. They touched on environmental issues, and local heritage matters, and wild life, and the natural environment, and the “greater good” of protecting forests, and increased flooding risks, which would threaten sewage line infrastructure.

New Tecumseth was represented by its solicitor, Jay Feehely, whose direction from council was to oppose the Rizzardo’s permit.

Mr. Feehely suggested the Tecumseth Estates applicationed contained a “fundamental flaw” due to  “the failure to disclose the nature of the owner’s interest in this property as having active development application before the Town of New Tecumseth.” And that was deemed significant because the reason for clearing the woodlot was to expand the agricultural component.

“The simple position is you can’t be both a farmer and a developer, you are one or the other. In this case, they are not farmers. Their solicitor has indicated that they are builders who hold a lot of farmland, and of course they farm it during the period while they’re awaiting development. That’s a very opportune thing to do, because it allows you to do assessment farming,” argued Mr. Feehely. “Assessment farming produces a crop, and that crop saves realty tax dollars, and that’s perfectly legitimate, and we take no issue with that. However, the reality of this property, it is subject to development application before the Town of New Tecumseth. … And if you want to be a farmer, withdraw your development application. … If they cease to be developers, if they withdrew those applications today, I would have to say that’s the end of my argument, because now they’re farmers. they’re only going to be farmers.”

In his final rebuttal, Mr. Rowe said “I’m not suggesting the Rizzardo’s are farmers, but I’m suggesting they own a great deal of farm land, and this is one of their holdings.”

“At this very late date, the Town raises an issue, that if legitimate, should have been raised years ago. … It certainly doesn’t mean they can stand before you and say, ‘you should ignore the process you have that my client successfully undertook, so that we can extort something from him, perhaps 25 years from now (tree compensation).”

He reminded County councillors that while the Tecumseth Estates application for Official Plan and Zoning Bylaw amendments falls under previous Planning Act provisions, the expansion of settlement areas can only be triggered by the municipality. As such, the Town would control the subject site’s development prospects.

“In judging from the position the Town is taking with respect to the existing application, and the history of that application, there is no evidence of support by the Town for this application in the future,” argued Mr. Rowe. “So whether these lands will ever be a settlement area, is a future uncertain event. It may take a decade, there was a reference to 25 years, it may be never. My client intends to farm the land.”

He also attacked the notion that because the development application was still an open file, “It isn’t an active application. It exists, but it remains as dormant today as it was in 2008, and the reason being as I already indicated, we can’t trigger the process that would approve an expansion of settlement areas, but nobody has ever tried to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes about what the long term intentions of my client is. But that doesn’t mean that in the interim, they don’t want to farm the land, and expand the land that is being farmed, and that was in consultation with the tenant farmer.”

Mr. Rowe addressed the various residents’ concerns, suggesting that “With all due respect, none of the objectors have the expertise” to question the approvals by the reviewing agencies.

“Quite frankly, a great number of people have treated my client’s land as their private park. Well, it’s not a private park, if you notice in the photographs, there are no trespassing signs. This isn’t a park, and they’re not trying to keep it as a park, when my client has a valid use for farm purposes.”

When Mr. Rowe concluded, County council moved in camera with its lawyer, Marshall Greene and rose without rendering a decision.