Big Box store could threaten environmentally sensitive land

A Windsor city councillor and a group of concerned citizens are speaking out against a proposed big box development in an environmentally sensitive area south of the city.

Coco Paving has submitted a proposal to develop nineteen hectares of land that's part of the Ojibway Prairie complex. The company plans on creating a four hectare buffer zone between the development and the natural area.

Coco Paving told CBC Windsor they plan on dealing with environmental concerns, but did not provide any details.

That's not good enough for Nancy Panchesan, a member of Save Ojibway.

"It's just not reasonable to hurt a provincial park for the profit of a few," she said. "We'll see 18,000 vehicles per day travel around our provincial nature reserve and Ojibway park. Their proposal is not capable of dealing with benefits to them at all."

Councillor Alan Halberstadt is another opponent of developing the land.

"We're over-retailed," he said. "Our planning people did a study. We don't need another Walmart style supermall on the outskirts."

The decision about how the land will be developed in now up to Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources.