BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a story titled 'Inconsistent policies over cannabis operations 'very frustrating',' published Jan. 21.
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The recent (public meeting) featured politicians from three levels of government who were more than willing to blame everybody else including the federal government for cannabis farm problems.
Stop! The blame game stops right here in Oro-Medonte. The mayor and his crew own this one.
Shanty Bay is an historical settlement, steeped in tradition and now it sits right next to a cannabis farm, wired and cloaked like a prison. To all that pass, the cannabis prison is a visual reminder of yet another planning failure. The people of Oro-Medonte, particularly Shanty Bay, deserve better and they deserve answers from a township that continues to fail them.
1. The mayor has claimed that the township was powerless to stop the development of the cannabis operation at Oro Station. A first planning mistake may be forgivable, but a second one when we have at least five planners on staff? Once the stench, and the problems of the lights and the noise of generators became obvious in Oro Station, why didn't the township immediately take steps to protect all settlement areas from this legal-to-grow agricultural product?
2. Conflicting agriculture uses that create foul odours such as hog farms or chicken farms are typically setback from settlement areas. Experts in land-use planning believe that the most effective way to avoid conflicts is to separate land uses. Why wasn't a buffering approach adopted in Oro-Medonte once the mistakes of Oro Station became obvious?
3. Council passed an interim control bylaw that was supposed to freeze new cannabis farms. Why did the township issue a building permit to a cannabis grower that started building after the interim control bylaw was passed?
4. The township is now attempting to limit an agricultural product to industrial zones — an attempt that the informed see as futile. Homeowners, at their own personal expense, are paying to help the township defend this approach. If the by law fails and the Shanty Bay cannabis farm is allowed to continue operations, will the township compensate owners for their land value losses and their costs of supporting the appeal?
In the end, it isn’t just Shanty Bay that deserves honest answers. We all do. If the answers are not forthcoming, we will know who isn’t deserving of our vote come October.
H.Leake
Oro-Medonte
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