Black soil before blackjack: Gateway looks to bring in fill for casino site

Innisfil council helped Gateway Casinos and Entertainment keep the odds in its favour for opening a new casino site in the southern portion of the municipality.

Council agreed to allow Gateway, which also operates Casino Rama, to start bringing in fill to the site it purchased at 255 Reive Blvd., which could be home to a new casino before the end of the decade.

What was unique about the endorsement was that site plan approval hasn’t been granted yet, nor have the parties received word whether the requested Minister’s Zoning Order (MZO) will be approved by the provincial government.

The site features “significant elevation changes which necessitate the need for importation of fill,” stated a letter from EXP, civil consultants retained by Gateway, that was included with the staff report for the Oct. 23 council meeting.

“It was previously estimated by our Engineers that the property would need approximately +/- 109,500 cubic meters of fill to be brought on-site, for the development to be feasible,” the letter continued.

 The town isn’t the only governing body that will be required to sign off, staff indicated.

“The proposal by Gateway to import material to the site meets the requirements for a site alteration permit under the current By-law. Furthermore, approval from the (Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority), as well as the (Ontario) Ministry of Tourism and Culture, will be obtained, and necessary securities will be collected prior to the commencement of any work,” the staff report on this issue stated.

The conservation authority has approved the importation and stockpiling of fill, the report added, but not to spread it on site, town development engineering manager Devina Mohamed said during the meeting.

The site alteration plan spells out how the fill be managed on-site, how erosion and sediment will be controlled, as well as a private water well survey, haul route plan and archaeological reports.

Coun. Alex Waters wanted to ensure the importation of fill wouldn’t adversely affect the existing property and surrounding neighbourhoods.

“When we originally passed the MZO, I asked specifically where they’re going to build and they said there was enough high land on the property that they wouldn’t have to touch the lands which have drainage areas in them,” Waters said. “I just want to confirm that the fill is not going to be in the regulated areas of drainage.”

Waters was correct, Mohamed confirmed.

“The preliminary grading plan shows that now work is proposed within the 30-metre setback of the flood line of that watercourse,” she said. “We have that level of comfort that no work will be within the flood plane, much less the setback.”

She also added testing on the fill is done at its origin and then again once it arrives in Innisfil.

How the fill would arrive in Innisfil was also discussed by council. Mohamed indicated as many as 11,000 truckloads would be required to move the fill to the Gateway site, taking about three to four months to complete.

Coun, Kevin Eisses was concerned about what that might actually look like on area roads.

“Will the applicant provide some traffic help at all times with the trucks as moving in?” he asked. “I know from past experiences these truck drivers, they get paid by the load, so they’re in quite a bit of a hurry to get back to the next one. For the majority of them, they do that well, but there’s always a small percentage that might want to take a shortcut through someone’s driveway.”

Truckers will be forced to follow the haul route as outlined in the site application plan, Mohamed said. Currently, the only municipal road to be impacted will be Reive Boulevard, as the trucks will enter and exit the municipality via the Highway 89 exit at Highway 400.

Trucks will also be staggered at the origin site of the fill to help control traffic, she added.

That’s a section of road already used to heavy traffic, Mayor Lynn Dollin said, given the volume of vehicles using the exit to get to the Honda plant in Alliston. More importantly, no trucks are expected on Line 2, which is good news for residents and for the road itself.

“That’s wonderful, because 2nd Line is not hard-surfaced, so it would not take that type of beating,” the mayor said.

All costs associated with the permit are borne by the applicant, with no financial impact to the town.