A nearly decade-and-a-half long process to approve a new cemetery in Bradford West Gwillimbury will extend into the next term of council.
At the Sept. 6 meeting, councillors decided to defer a recommendation being considered in committee-of-the-whole that called for approval of an Official Plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment to allow the establishment of a cemetery at 3999 Sideroad 10.
The property is owned by Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Canada (AMJ) and is currently designated under agricultural zoning that dates back to the former Township of West Gwillimbury. That’s because during the institution of the 2010 zoning bylaw for Bradford West Gwillimbury, still in effect, updated zoning for the lands was “deferred at the north-east corner of Line 11 and Sideroad 10 pending the outcome of the owner’s efforts to secure permission for a cemetery on the subject lands within the policies and designations of the Simcoe County Official Plan,” a staff report indicated.
When the matter came to committee, Deputy Mayor James Leduc, acting as chair, sought to have Alan Wiebe, manager of community planning, speak to the report in the hopes that it would answer any outstanding questions raised either by councillors or the members of the public who had commented earlier in the meeting during the open forum section.
Wiebe eventually got to explain what Leduc had hoped for, but not before some councillors took issue with the final portion of the recommendation in front of them.
The recommendation from staff suggested, “Council deems that the proposed cemetery on the subject lands is ‘in the public's interest,’ and that holding a second public hearing for the proposal is unnecessary.”
While it’s questionable if all councillors believe the proposed cemetery is in the public interest, five of the nine members felt strongly that the public hadn’t had sufficient opportunity to get their questions answered on the matter.
Coun. Gary Lamb called for the item to be deferred until after a second public meeting on the issue could be held, “to clear the air.” By giving concerned neighbours a chance to ask questions and then proponents the opportunity to respond, “then at least people don’t think this was rammed down their throat,” he said.
“This is not about AMJ,” Lamb added. “This is about public process.”
Lamb’s concern was that the public meeting on the matter was held May 26, 2020, during the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Coun. Peter Ferragine, who represents the area where the property is located, echoed that concern, saying he strongly supported a second public meeting.
“I’m not 100 per cent sure, but I think it was one of our first public meetings we had electronically,” Ferragine said. “A lot of people didn’t know how to use Zoom. They didn’t know how to use the technology; they weren’t sure how to call in. It was a lost case.”
Coun. Peter Dykie was also in support of a second public meeting, who also felt residents weren’t able to adequately have their concerns raised on the matter during the early stages of the pandemic.
“A funeral home, a cemetery, this has a big impact to the area. Not only to the lifelong residents but to the landscape of the property,” he said. “This is agricultural land that is being converted to another use. That opens another Pandora’s Box.”
Dykie had additional concerns and admitted he felt like all the questions he had weren’t answered through the process either. He was particularly fixated on the impact the cemetery could have on the drinking water for area residents, an issue also brought up in open forum, by many of the neighbours who spoke who are currently serviced by private wells.
This issue was also brought up through the public meeting process and was addressed in the staff report.
“The majority of the water supply wells in the area are up gradient of the proposed burial area so they would not be impacted by activities at the site,” the report indicated. “While the risks to existing local supply wells are minimal, additional measures can be considered to further mitigate/minimize impacts to the local groundwater system.”
Those mitigation measures, staff added, would be addressed during the detailed design stage of the site plan approval process.
Still, Dykie persisted, as he indicated he had questions about the burial process at Muslim cemeteries, despite a high-level overview of Islamic burial traditions also being provided in the staff report.
“There’s a difference between the casket in a vault versus how they do their cemetery and I have to respect how they do it,” he said. “But the town and all the other residents have to be assured how this is dealt with. How the body is going in the ground, how does it impact the water.”
The idea of a deferral irked Coun. Raj Sandhu and Coun. Jonathan Scott.
Sandhu told his colleagues they had an opportunity in front of them during the committee-of-the-whole meeting to get the answers the public desired, particularly those who had spoken in opposition to the recommendation during open forum, as town staff and planning representatives from the proponent were in attendance at the meeting.
But he was dismayed by some of the rationale provided by his colleagues for wanting an additional, in-person meeting on the matter.
“I can understand a member of the public saying they didn’t have time because of COVID, they didn’t know and they weren’t able to take part in it for whatever reason. But for a member of council to say that they didn’t have enough information? This is an over-10 years application,” Sandhu said. “All of our council meetings in the last two years have been on Zoom and based on information we get online. I can buy it for the public; rightfully their questions should be answered. But for us to say we didn’t have enough information, I find that hard to buy.”
Scott was equally worried about the precedent opting for a second public meeting would create.
“How many other times are we going to claim COVID prevents us from what we did in the past carrying forward?” he asked. “If this application is considered to have had insufficient public consultation, any other applicant who had a public planning meeting – or any other person who’s opposed to an applicant’s project that had a public planning meeting during COVID – we open ourselves up to two-and-a-half years worth of calling for second meetings."
“I get the intention here,” Scott added. “But I don’t want to set that precedent for every other application that we’ve dealt with in the past two-and-a-half years.”
A few additional questions followed Wiebe’s overview of the report before the vote to defer the recommendation was finally called, passing by a 5-4 vote, with Coun. Mark Contois, Dykie, Ferragine, Lamb and Coun. Ron Orr in favour.
That deferral punted the decision on this file into the hands of the next council, with Clerk Rebecca Murphy indicating a new report on the matter would likely not be before council until December at the earliest.
“We may be able to squeeze in the second public meeting before the election,” she said. “However, realizing that a second public meeting is going to be held and then there will be responses that will be required or asked for from the proponent and planning staff to consider from that second public meeting, thus the recommendation report will not be brought back in this term of council.”
