The provincial Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan has Mono residents questioning how they can use their land, if it becomes part of the Town’s zoning bylaw.

At a public meeting Tuesday evening,Wendy Nott, planning consultant with Walker, Nott, Dragicevic Associates, gave those present an overview of the draft bylaw and copies were available at the meeting.

In her overview, she stated only a small area of the town will be affected by the plan.

The draft bylaw creates three new zone categories that relate to the three distinct land use designations within the Oak Ridges Moraine (ORM) Plan.

Those categories are Oak Ridges Moraine Natural Core Zone, Oak Ridges Moraine Linkage Zone and Oak Ridges Moraine Countryside Zone.

She explained that the Natural Core Zone under the provincial plan has the highest concentration of natural heritage land.

The uses permitted in this area include any single family house zoning that existed prior to November 15, 2001. That date is important, she said, because that’s when the province decided there would be an Oak Ridges Moraine Plan in Ontario, and it is retroactive.

Therefore, if you were able to build a single family house on your property before that date you still can. Amongst other things, you can operate a bed and breakfast, a home business and a farm vacation home.

Linkage and Countryside Zones permit the same uses. However, there are specific prohibited uses in the areas with high aquifer vulnerability. Within the area, any use associated with hazardous or toxic waste, sewage treatments lagoons, salt storage facilities, organic conditioning sites, intensive livestock operations is prohibited.

“That applies to virtually all those lands in subject in the Oak Ridges Moraine within the town,” said Ms. Nott.

She mentioned that under the plan some additions are allowed, such as garages, but an environmental study might have to be done to show the potential impact and if there was an impact litigation might be required.

The cost of the study would be charged to the resident making a proposal for the land, and the type of consultant required would depend on what area the land falls under.

J.P. Perreault said he and his wife Kirsten Ball are affected by two of the zones and the aquifer vulnerability.

He asked how they would be affected if they built a single-family home and a pond.

Ms. Nott told him the house would be fine, as it falls under the old bylaw, but the conservation authority would have an interest in the size and type of the pond he would want to build.

Real estate agent Victoria Phillips wanted to know how building barns would be affected by the ORM plan.

Ms. Nott stated agricultural uses are permitted in all three zones. Under the ORM plan growing crops, such as nursery or horticultural crops, raising livestock and other animals, aquaculture, agro-forestry and maple syrup production are allowed.

However, there are constraints on farming and the first is that the property can not be altered by more than 25 per cent in conservation area 1 and no more than 50 per cent in conservation area 2.

Council is awaiting comments from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and then it will be brought back to council.