ELORA – While councillors, residents and business owners alike agree something needs to be done about the downtown "garbage woes," the location of a proposed pilot has some shaking their heads.
Deferred at a Centre Wellington council meeting Monday afternoon, councillors are asking for more information about a proposed garbage pilot that would see Molok containers installed behind the new public washroom facility planned next to the Tourism Information Centre building on East Mill Street after hearing concerns about the suggested location from neighbouring business owners.
Staff said the proposed strategy would address issues with the volume and lack of storage for garbage and recycling in downtown Elora and Fergus.
This was supported by the chair of the Elora BIA MacLean Hann who delegated during the meeting about local businesses' ongoing problems with the "garbage mountain" that appears around waste collection days.
"We hope that we can find a solution that solves all of our garbage woes, even though I suspect that's probably going to take another decade," said Hann. "Optimistically speaking, it would be nice to get the ball rolling in some way or some fashion. And I do appreciate that...it's going to be in somebody's yard. It just is. And I'm not trying to discount it, but I don't know what the solution is. I just know that we need one."
Delegates like owners of Karger Gallery, Renata Karger and John Kears disagreed- saying they were "very upset" when they returned from vacation and learned from the news- not the township- that the proposed Moloks would be located less than 15 feet from the back of their property.
Asking staff to consider alternate locations for the Moloks, Kears said he and his wife would "never have invested into East Mill" if they'd known they would have to accept having six or eight Moloks "full of stew cooking in the sun" installed near their home.
Agreeing with Kears, chef-owner of the Wild Tart and the Badley Geoffrey Wild asked for improved communication on the project and questioned how they can trust the future contractors to do their jobs when the current ones are already often late for the bi-weekly garbage pick-up.
"The most beautiful part of our building is also going to be covered by the washrooms, which we're learning to live with, but to put the Molok site right behind the washrooms is not a wise idea," said Karger. "We just spent two years going through construction and spending millions of dollars trying to make East Mill Street a better place and gateway to Elora. Why on earth would they think...to put these Molok dumpsters right beside our building?"
Sharing her concerns about the lack of public engagement, Coun. Bronwynne Wilton said she believes the Moloks are a good idea but would like to see staff investigate alternative locations.
"Part of the problem...is the underground services and trying to retrofit old downtowns where things are squished all together and finding places for them," said Wilton. "So I do think we just need to be kind of creative and open-minded with where we're looking for the locations, and as we're doing project moving forward."
The LCBO on Metcalfe Street or the parking extension on Geddes Street were later suggested as alternate locations but managing director of community services Pat Newson said the LCBO site isn't possible because of existing wastewater infrastructure underground on-site.
Staff will return with a report on the project at the Sept. 30 council meeting.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program
