Building a highway through a farm ?

Thriving B&B threatened by Strasburg Road extension
Terry Pender, Waterloo Region Record: April 29.

KITCHENER — Monika Ruttkowski drives a vintage tractor over farm fields around her 140-year-old stone house with a worried eye cast to the north.
Strasburg Road will be extended southward to carry thousands of vehicles a day in and out of a large new subdivision called Doon South Phase II. The preferred route at this point will cut her property in half. The four-lane road will pass within 25 metres of the house where she operates a thriving bed and breakfast. A roundabout will be located just north of her home.
After buying the fieldstone house in 1984, she and her husband spent more than $300,000 on renovations and additions. Wedding receptions, retreats and corporate meetings are held there. Tourists from the U.S. and Europe regularly stay there when taking in plays in Stratford.
"Already, I am booked to the end of September," Ruttkowski says during an interview at her dining room table.
At least once a month there is a knock at the door. A developer’s representative wants to talk about buying her 40-hectare property. Ruttkowski always refuses.
Born in Germany near the beginning of the Second World War, she has childhood memories of fleeing with her mother on roads of refugees. After growing up in the bloody chaos of mid-20th-century Europe, Ruttkowski and her late husband wanted a peaceful place with a little farm where they could run a bed and breakfast, grow their own food and enjoy the company of travellers.
"This was the dream for us," Ruttkowski says. "I have moved enough, this is where I want to stay."
Just below her property is a woodlot and marsh — the headwaters of Blair Creek, the only remaining cold-water trout stream in the city. Trilliums and other wildflowers are blooming there. Whitetail deer, turkeys, raccoons, beavers, squirrels, turtles and other wildlife are frequently seen on the property, which includes a large, spring-fed pond. An environmental assessment now underway has identified five possible routes for the extension of Strasburg Road. Part of this area is a significant-groundwater recharge area, and the preferred route for the roadway goes right through this sensitive landscape.
"It makes no sense," says Alison Jackson, one of Ruttkowski’s supporters. "You can run a bus right through their arguments."
The city’s environmental advisory committee formed a special group to study the issue, and it rejected the preferred route identified in the draft environmental assessment. Jackson says the city should go with the first alternative identified in the environmental assessment, which has the road to the west of Ruttkowski’s property skirting the edge of the groundwater recharge areas and the headwaters of Blair Creek.
Developers have long-eyed this area of south Kitchener. They took the city to a provincial tribunal that rules on land-use disputes — Ontario Municipal Board — to speed up the process for planning new subdivisions.
Homer Watson Boulevard and New Dundee Road provide access from the east and south. The Strasburg Road extension will be needed for access from the north and west. The extension will cost an estimated $15 million to $17 million and construction is years away.
While she waits for the studies to be finished, Ruttkowski fears she may be forced by the city to sell her land in the future to make way for the road.