Ste Anne couple mount case against municipality

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This article was published 07/12/2017 (2329 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local couple is currently fighting the RM of Ste Anne in court, as they look to have a number of conditions removed from a gravel pit that sits on their property that would allow them to sell and transport what they remove from the pit.

A court affidavit obtained by The Carillon shows that Lawrence and Anne Anderson have taken the RM of Ste Anne to court over a conditional use at their property in Ste Anne.

The couple was last in court in Winnipeg on the morning of Nov. 30.

Court records indicate the couple originally bought a 146-acre property in Ste Anne that borders the Trans-Canada Highway and Provincial Road 302, but in 2006 they subdivided the property and sold 60 acres to Premier Horticulture.

The affidavit also shows around that same time the couple had their property examined and it was discovered there was a “large amount of aggregate in the land.”

In 2006, the municipality agreed to allow the couple to establish a gravel extraction operation on the property, but with a number of conditions that included the material only be used for personal use, or to sell solely to Premier Horticulture.

The RM said at the time “no material is to leave the site.”

The couple now want a number of conditions removed from the gravel pit, and added they are no longer in an agreement to sell aggregate to Premier Horticulture, and can currently only use the aggregate for personal use.

“There is a very large stockpile of extracted aggregate on the property that we estimate to include over 5,000 yards of rock and sand. This has been excavated but cannot be sold or transported because of the restriction the RM has imposed on us,” Lawrence Anderson said in the affidavit.

The affidavit stated the couple now “seek removal of the conditions and particularly removal of the condition relating to the prohibition of the use and sale of the aggregate.”

Ste Anne reeve Art Bergmann said that the couple’s gravel pit has been shut down by the municipality because of a failure to comply with the existing conditional use.

“Basically we have issued conditional use permits for the removal of aggregate from the Anderson property and those conditions that the conditional use put into place were breached, and so we closed it down because of non-compliance,” Bergmann said.

“The conditions that the conditional use allowed them to extract aggregate under were quite strict and basically they breached them.”

Bergmann added he did not want to comment further about the issue because the case is currently in court.