Councillor Ferguson is seeking to extend a sewer pipe to a rural business in violation of provincial rules and the city’s own official plan. The pipe would benefit the world’s largest bakery even though the company has not registered to lobby councillors and it could also open the door for a future urban boundary expansion.
A motion by Ferguson to be debated on January 13 asks “that ARYZTA Ltd. (formerly Oakrun Bakery) be permitted to connect to the municipal wastewater system, at their cost, in a manner acceptable to the City of Hamilton.” ARYZTA is a Swiss corporation that obtained Oakrun last year as part of its purchase of Pineridge Bakery along with other North American bakeries that made it the largest bakery in the world with revenues in 2014 of 1.37 billion Euros ($2.12 billion Canadian).
The motion notes the city approved a water pipe to the Carluke Road bakery a decade ago – a hotly debated decision characterized as “against all the rules” by then councillor Dave Braden. Providing water and/or sewer services to properties outside the urban boundary still appears to be against the rules.
“The Province requires municipalities to prohibit the extension or expansion of lake-based municipal services to all rural areas, except in response to public health emergencies,” states the city’s current official plan. “No extensions of the municipal lake-based water and wastewater systems shall be permitted into rural area lands detailed in this Plan unless the Medical Officer of Health declares an urgent public health emergency and there are no viable alternatives to rectify the emergency except by the provision of municipal water and/or wastewater systems to the affected population.”
The official plan specifically notes that exceptions were made previously and the city continues to recognize those exceptions “approved on or before December 16, 2004”, but that “no future lake-based municipal service extensions or expansions, agreements, plans or amendments shall be permitted by this Plan.” The water pipe to the Oakrun Bakery was approved in September 2004 – by a staff recommendation whose approval was moved by Ferguson’s brother Murray. The staff report stressed this was a one-time exception and the implementing resolution required amendments to three affected official plans in force at the time covering the former region, as well as both Ancaster and Glanbrook.
A current city brochure contains similar warnings to rural landowners about exceptions only for medical justification and also requires completion of a petition signed by two-thirds of the affected rural landowners. It warns that signatories will have to pay for the pipe installation. Ironically in light of the ARYZTA request, the brochure also notes that “previous experience has shown that septic systems generally fail once municipal water is available.”
Councillor Ferguson’s motion suggests this may be the problem being addressed by ARYZTA. It says the company is “working with the Ministry of the Environment” on “a long term sustainable wastewater servicing strategy, but the current soil characteristics limit the servicing options available”. The rules on water and sewer services are intended to limit urban sprawl into rural areas that is otherwise restricted by the necessary separation between wells and septic services.
Past decisions that pushed pipes into rural areas, especially by the former Stoney Creek city council, have been subsequently used to justify expansion of the urban boundary to lands “already serviced”. This was a significant argument used for the massive Stoney Creek Urban Boundary Expansion (SCUBE) and has been raised more recently by tenderfruit landowners as a reason to remove their properties from the Greenbelt.
The pipe extension restrictions are also intended to prevent businesses from establishing industrial uses on low-cost agricultural lands instead of locating in designated urban zones serviced by truck routes, public transit and other amenities.
Neither ARYZTA nor Pineridge are listed on the city’s lobbyist registry, and only three companies have thus far evenindicatedthey intend to lobby councillor Ferguson, so it’s unclear why he has put forward this personal motion. A controversial exception to the registry rules thatallows“communication with a public officer holder by their constituent regarding that constituent’s business or financial interest” might have applied before Oakrun was sold, but seems inapplicable to a huge multi-national.