AIL Group has started advertising to fill positions at a new factory it plans to build on Walker Road, near the Transcanada Highway. The notice on the company’s website says the new plant will be a “state-of-the-art pipe manufacturing facility”, and is expected to open next year, in early 2023.
AIL spokesperson Peter Mesheau told CHMA previously that the company expects to employ about 20 people at the plant. Eight different positions are listed on the company site including sales representatives, maintenance technicians and machine operators.
AIL has applied for a permit to prepare the Walker Road site for construction. Planner Lori Bickford says the application includes a storm drainage plan for the site, and if approved would allow AIL Group to regrade the property and do landscaping work. Before AIL can start construction on a factory, it will need a development and building permit, says Bickford. That will require confirmation from various provincial departments before being approved.
According to Sackville’s recently revised zoning by-law, the construction of the factory is as-of-right, meaning that as long as provincial regulations are met, it is allowed under municipal by-laws and does not require approval by municipal council.
In April, town council approved a change to the town’s zoning by-law which makes way for the AIL factory, as well as other development on the 177-acre Walker Road industrial zone. When the zone was established in 2008, the town’s bylaws required that all development in industrial zones would be connected to town water and sewer. While the Crescent Street industrial park in fully serviced, the Walker Road zone is not, and there are no plans to connect the area.
It’s not yet clear whether the new plant will be subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by the province. Spokesperson Anne Mooers told CHMA via email that the Department of Environment has been approached about the project, and “the EIA Branch is actively screening the information submitted to determine if an EIA is required. No decision has been made yet.”
Earlier this month, the 12-acre plot of land purchased by AIL was cleared of trees and greenery by previous owner Drew Fraser at Cantech Construction. As previously reported by CHMA, a group of citizens living nearby then wrote to Sackville’s mayor and council to express concerns about the new facility, including worries about the effects on groundwater and a lack of public consultation around the project.
Mayor Shawn Mesheau responded to the group in a letter on May 20, describing the process so far and the fact that at council’s March 14 meeting, a public hearing was held regarding the change to the zoning bylaw that removed the requirement for industrial zone developments to be connected to town water and sewer services.
At that March 14 meeting, planner Lori Bickford presented the case for the text amendment to the bylaw, and no residents spoke to the proposed change, either for or against. After the hearing, Councillor Sabine Dietz asked Bickford about the notification system for the public hearing, expressing concern that it was not adequate to inform people.
As per requirements under the Community Planning Act, Bickford says the proposed change was published on the town’s website, as well as the Plan 360 website, but that no direct mail notices were sent out. The Community Planning Act requires that municipalities alert citizens to proposed bylaw changes in advance, but the choice is given to either advertise the proposal in a local newspaper, or to post the proposed change on a municipal website. In the case of zoning changes, the municipality can choose to notify residents within 100 metres of the affected area by direct mail.
On March 14, Bickford told Dietz that because this amendment would apply to all land zoned industrial in the town of Sackville, the area was considered too large for direct mail notification. “We do not notify all the property owners because of the area that that would encompass,” said Bickford.
Bickford told CHMA that a site-specific change in zoning would have triggered the 100-metre direct notification rule, but since a text amendment to the zoning by-law affects all industrial zones, it did not. Bickford said that notification practice is something that council can revisit in future. The Community Planning Act also allows for posting of signs on sites that are pending proposed changes.
Sackville’s notification practice when it comes to zoning changes has proved controversial in the past, most recently when a number of residents took issue with the 100-metre direct notification standard before a public hearing on a proposed abattoir on Crescent Street. At that time, residents outside the 100-metre boundary complained that they should have been notified of the proposed development.
