Heather Wright/The Independent

Wanstead neighbours are frustrated after a hearing on a controversial plan to build a livestock trailer washing station in their neighbourhood was postponed.

Tuesday, Plympton-Wyoming announced the Sept. 29 meeting on Cornerstone Group’s proposal was postponed without giving a new date.

“Due to the significant number of comments received at the (Sept. 3) public meeting, along with our further requests for additional technical information, the applicant requires more time to complete the studies requested by the town,” says the notice. The company will have to complete noise, hydrogeological and odour studies for the town. They might require third-party reviews.

Jess Jessome lives next to the properties which have to be rezoned to allow the washing station to be built.

“Since 2022, our community has endured four separate submissions from the same developer and twice now the town has already deemed the application ‘complete.’ Despite this, we are yet again facing postponements. Each delay leaves families hanging, uncertain about their future, while the developer is given more time to stretch the process,” she said in a letter.

“Last year, over 30 Wanstead residents stood in the rain outside Town Hall, waiting for a decision only to be told at the last moment that the developer had pulled the application. This was after the town’s own planning department had declared the file complete,” she said. “Now we are told new studies are needed — but these should have been required from the outset. That is a failure of due diligence, and the cost of that failure is being unfairly carried by residents.”

The delay comes after a public input meeting which drew over 100 people even though there are less than a dozen homes in the hamlet. Six homes sit directly beside the two lots on Leyton Street.

Cornerstone Group argues Wanstead already has a lot of agricultural businesses and one of the lots is already zoned for agriculture implement and supply sales.

Neighbours alleged the company has been trying to push the zoning through the “back door” by first building a “strawberry operation” on the site.

That 7,900 square-foot building has four transport truck bays and will become the drying unit for the project if the zoning is approved.

The company also received approval from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks in 2019 for a closed-loop water treatment system for a trailer washing facility.

The company has also received a $900,000 grant from the federal government to deal with Avian Flu outbreaks in the region. Neighbours worry trucks used in that process might end up at the station.

Their main concern stated at the public meeting in early September was whether local wells would be contaminated if the close-looped water treatment system failed.

Sept. 29, councillors were expected to discuss the proposal, ask question of the company and possibly make a decision.

Jessome says enough is enough. “The residents of Wanstead have been patient, engaged, and consistent. The failures here are not ours. It is time for Council to act with fairness, uphold the intent of our zoning bylaws, and finally put the well-being of Wanstead families first.”

For it’s part, the town apologized for the “inconvenience” caused by the delay.

“We recognize and value the continued engagement of the community.”