Group challenges highway expansion report

Sunday, March 27, 2011

by PAT CURRIE

The Township of Perth East took a neutral stand when it polished its list of concerns over expansion plans for the Highway 7/8 link between Kitchener-Waterloo and Stratford, and sent it off to the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario this week.

Not so the Agricultural Business Community (ABC) of Perth East, Perth South and Wilmot West. On Friday — a deadline set by the ministry — ABC submitted its own revised rap sheet of shortcomings in the latest consultants’ report. ABC, at one point, characterized the ministry’s report as a million-dollar exercise "in telling farmers what they already know."

The group conceded that the latest report by AECOM was an improvement over one it had savaged in February as having "serious flaws," "flagrant biases against the agricultural community," "neglect of critical items," and being "based on . . . flimsy arguments." But they say they still found serious shortcomings in how the report addressed the issues of exactly how much farmland will be taken permanently out of production and how the road project will impact drainage, now a major farm concern.

The original ministry estimate that 500 acres of farmland will be lost has grown by some "sleight of hand" process over three years to something larger but still indefinite, the ABC report said. If expansion is needed on a railway line parallel to the new roadway, more may be taken from farmers who have already lost a strip of land taken by the province 30 years ago for a widening of Highway 7/8 that never happened, ABC noted.

"We don’t think they (ministry officials) are telling us the truth," ABC spokeswoman Sharon Weitzel said in an interview. The group says 22 businesses and 186 parcels of land totaling more than 12,000 acres will be impacted by building a new five-lane highway south of present Highway 7/8 from east of the hamlet of Shakespeare and bypassing Stratford.

Ministry spokesman Bob Nichols said it "is considering many options to mitigate impacts to farm operations and will work with affected property owners to determine how best their concerns may be addressed."

The ABC report blasted the ministry and AECOM for failing to understand how the farm community works.

"Do farmers have to become an endangered species before consultants recognize that the green land surrounding farm buildings is an integral part of their ability to operate as a business and produce food?" the report asked at one point.

Perth East Chief Administrative Officer Glenn Schwendinger said the highway project is still far in the future after a lengthy study and approval process by a bundle of official bodies. After that, " it will be subject to where it fits in on a list of provincial priorities, and if the money is available."

The Perth East document did not take a stand on the issue, merely noting objections and concerns expressed by township residents along the proposed route.

Chief among them were: loss of some 500 acres of agricultural land, the possibility of farms or parts of farms being "landlocked" without access to roads and the future viability of the tourist-friendly hamlet of Shakespeare, about five kilometres east of Stratford.

The latest proposed route bypasses Shakespeare after residents loudly and persistently objected to a proposed route through the heart of the hamlet.

Now the community is threatened with being cut off from tourist traffic that will cause it to wither away, ABC contends. BF