2005 Annual Report

Message from Chair - The Process - The Community Case - Volunteer Committee - Financials - Public Activity Report - References

The Process

We are in a fight to save our communities, and after two years of opposing this application we are still in the beginning phases. The pace is driven by the proponent, and there are three major approvals that Lowndes Holdings Corp. must acquire. They are:

• Official Plan Amendment
• Zoning-By Law Change
• Class A Licence under the Ontario Aggregate Resources Act

So far Lowndes Holdings Corp. has only applied for the amendment and bylaw change. After the very negative feedback from the City's Peer Reviewers the proponent is effectively back at ground zero. The new submissions that have been made conflict with the original submissions, so that now most, if not all, of the supporting documentation will need to be updated.

Meanwhile, our activities as members of communities opposing the application involve:

• Holding the Decision Makers to the highest possible standards,
• Challenging the application with informed opinions from leading experts,
• Monitoring and responding to provincial legislation and regulations that come forward on Acts of significance for our cause: the Greenbelt Act; the Ontario Clean Water Act, etc.
• Raising funds to finance the costs of lawyers, experts, and future OMB hearings.

We've had considerable success to date in being more than a reactive group. Our proactive work contributed to ensuring that the new Greenbelt requirements were applied to this application. It is in part due to those regulations that Lowndes Holdings Corp. is finding the application process to be more challenging than originally anticipated.