Bidding on east-end landfill property approved by City of Ottawa finance committee
The City of Ottawa’s finance’s and corporate services committee has given the thumbs-up to exploring a bid on a 450-acre private landfill near Carlsbad Springs.
If city council agrees with that decision on Nov. 26, staff will start the process of making a bid on the land: the first and only private landfill to be approved in Ontario over the past 20 years.
One caveat: The details of the bid, including the cost, can’t be made public under the conditions of a non-disclosure agreement the city signed in April. The city will communicate the remaining details to the public only after the process is completed.
The
Capital Region Resource Recovery Centre
(CRRRC) is currently owned by Taggart Miller Environmental Services Inc. It is located on the east side of Boundary Road north of Devine Road and west of Frontier Road near the Boundary Road-Highway 417 interchange and abutting the Amazon fulfilment centre.
The property presents a rare opportunity, a city staff report says. It has already been
approved by the province as a landfill
, and the city can’t prevent it from being used that way. Owning the landfill would give the city flexibility and prevent it from being acquired by a private owner or another municipality. If it becomes a private landfill, tipping fees may be unpredictable.
“It’s going to be landfill in the future. It will either be owned by a private company, another municipality — or it will be owned by the City of Ottawa,” Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said.
“I think the discussion to be had is whether this is a good value for taxpayers’ money as part of our long-range plans for solid waste and whether it’s in the public interest for the city for the site to be publicly owned, or for it to be owned by another municipality that would be trucking garbage into our city.”
The staff report contended that, while the city had introduced programs to
divert garbage from the Trail Road landfill
, Ottawa’s population is expected to reach 1.5 million people by 2053 and the existing landfill was expected to reach capacity within the next decade.
Alain Gonthier, the city’s general manager of public works, said getting the approvals for a new landfill was a process that would typically take 15 years. If Ottawa acquires the property, it’s getting the land and all of the permits and approvals attached to the site.
Gonthier acknowledged that people likely felt uncomfortable about the non-disclosure agreement, but the city had to agree to the conditions in order to get a seat at the bidding table, he told the committee.
“Had the city not participated in it, it’s very highly likely that the site would have been sold and the public would have only found out once there was a new owner for the property,” he said.
In 2023, Ottawa councillors approved leveraging private landfills, sending one-third of residential waste to private landfills. That could extend the life of the Trail Road landfill by two years.
Last June, city council directed staff to perform an
in-depth evaluation of waste management technologies
for future consideration, including sending waste to private facilities, building a waste-to-energy incineration facility and building a new greenfield landfill for residential waste after the Trail Road landfill reaches capacity.
There were 10 presentations to the committee, including some in favour of bidding on the property.
“Even if the city decides to pursue this, you’ll be in direct competition with other entities,” Robert Leth, managing director of the NH3 Group of Companies, told the committee. “There are a number of parties that have determined that this is a bit of a gold mine to operate as a business.”
But opponents say they have been battling a landfill for four decades, and they were skeptical about why the property was being offered for sale if it was so profitable.
Residents say there will be increased truck traffic and environmental hazards associated with a landfill. The area’s leda clay deposits also make it difficult to build infrastructure. The property had also been used as an auto wrecking yard, which raised additional concerns.
Lucie Régimbald, a member of the Capital Region Citizen Coalition for the Protection of the Environment, was not surprised at the committee’s decision.
“
. That’s where the community’s frustration comes from. Something this big has been going on for three-quarters of a year,” Régimbald said. “We have two weeks to prepare and five minutes to speak.”
Aidan McCannell questioned why the city had entered into an agreement requiring such a high level of secrecy.
“It’s just financially irresponsible to blindly buy a distressed developer asset,” McCannell said. “And the process is a slap in the face of the taxpaying public.”
Coun. Isabelle Skalski, whose ward includes the Carlsbad area, said ward residents were “beside themselves” when they learned the city was contemplating buying the site.
“They’re tired of being the backyard dumping ground storage shed for Ottawa,” said Skalski, who is not a member of the finance committee.
“This rural community has fought tooth and nail for a decade to stop the facility on Boundary Road from being approved because of serious environmental concerns, backed by expert analysis, that the site is not suitable for for a landfill,” she said.
After years of fighting, residents were assured that the facility would be a recycling facility and used for commercial construction waste and soil processing. They were outraged to learn that Taggart Miller had
residential waste added to the allowable uses on the site
. That happened “completely under the radar,” Skalski said.
“On top of that, they learned that it has been for sale for months, but that the seller imposed a silent process to solicit bids. And, while this may be a common practice in land acquisition, to real people this isn’t any old land acquisition. This is the purchase of their backyard with their tax dollars to do exactly what they fought against for the last decade,” she told the committee.
The conditions under the non-disclosure agreement are so tight that there were only two weeks to respond, Skalski said.
“Imagine the fury to learn that, if the city doesn’t buy it, someone else will. And it will still be a dump for them.”
Related
Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
