Farm community protests conservation authority's slow response time on permits

Thursday, December 17, 2015

by SUSAN MANN

The Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority plans to meet with the Bruce, Grey and other area federations of agriculture in its watershed to listen to their concerns about the time it’s taking to process permit applications.

The Bruce Federation of Agriculture has expressed concerns about the conservation authority’s slowness in approving applications and has asked municipalities to withhold their levy payments to the authority.

Bruce federation president Les Nichols says they sent out letters to six Bruce County municipalities located within the conservation authority’s watershed last week.  

The problem of slow permit application approvals has been ongoing for several years, Nichols says. The conservation authority has tied up businesses and agricultural operations “for a lot longer than we think should be necessary.”

Some major applications “are going on close to three years” to deal with, he says. However, even smaller, more straightforward applications are taking longer than seems necessary, he notes.

Nichols says he’s in favour of a meeting with conservation authority board directors and senior staff and federation members to talk about their concerns.

Wayne Brohman, conservation authority general manager, says they’re working on improving their planning and regulations department.

The Saugeen conservation authority has jurisdiction over 1,800 square miles south of Owen Sound and abutting Lake Huron.

“We’ve had some timing issues with lots of different applicants, certainly not just agriculture, but we know that the board knows that and we’re working on some solutions,” he says.

Brohman says an increase in their volume of work is the main reason for the delays in dealing with permit applications. “We’ve got a 25 to 30 per cent increase in volume in the last year and that’s a challenge to handle.”

He notes it takes conservation authority staff time to review the applications for permits to ensure what applicants are proposing fits with the Conservation Authorities Act and the Provincial Policy Statement. Their work includes looking at maps, doing research and reading reports along with completing the required site visits “on almost every application. It’s a time-consuming endeavor,” he notes.

The Saugeen conservation authority’s recently approved budget was for $1.6 million and about half of that comes from levies from the 15 municipalities in the watershed, Brohman notes. If the municipalities agreed to withhold the levy payments, “I can’t see it helping the situation. How can we conduct our business if we don’t have the funding to do it?”

Brohman says he hasn’t heard if municipalities will comply with the Bruce federation’s request.

Nichols says they’ve heard back from a couple of municipalities that are supportive of the Bruce federation’s concerns. However, he’d be surprised if they actually withheld the levies. “Obviously there’s some legal implications to them withholding funds from the conservation authority.”

The federation’s goal was to bring the matter to a head, he notes. BF