A La Broquerie Council decision to deny a gravel pit operation could be appealed by the applicant.

Reeve Lewis Weiss indicates that Council denied Cottonwood Holsteins permission to develop the operation on their property at the corner of Provincial Road 303 and Ekron-Oswald Road because of an outflow of objections from residents in the area.

Though council’s decision was final, new regulations give the Municipal Board the power to determine whether or not the land can be developed as a quarry. For this reason, Weiss had not wanted Council to deny the operation outright as they now have no say over the conditional use of the property.

“If it is up to the [Municipal Board] to make the decision, my fear is that they will not take our concerns into consideration and will they just require the minimum rules to be abided by.”

Roughly 30 people attended the public hearing on Wednesday.

Roughly 30 people attended a public hearing on this issue on Wednesday, many of whom expressed similar reservations.

“I suppose merely meeting regulations is good enough if we are talking about a gravel pit in the middle of nowhere,” says neighbor Kaitlin Burke, “but that’s not where this one will be.”

Burke and several others stressed that the noise, unsightliness, dust, constant traffic, safety hazards, and decrease in property value that would accompany a neighboring gravel pit are too significant to ignore.

Weiss and his fellow councillors recognize these concerns and want them honored, however, it is still unclear if the province will feel the same way.

“I don’t want a gravel pit in somebody’s back yard,” states Weiss, “so I am afraid of the next step,”.

Diamond Construction is the contractor pushing for the gravel operation. They first made their case to Council back in April of 2018 and had made several changes to their original plan based on the resident backlash at the time.

Weiss acknowledges these changes and says many of the neighboring resident’s seemed grateful for the effort, but nevertheless remained in opposition.

A spokesperson for Diamond Construction says the company will consider making an appeal to the Municipal Board that they may follow through with their plans to develop the property. The land in question is now locked until it can be mined.