A Brand New Way To Get Money

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 03:45 AM

Has the stage been set to use the Agriculture Land Commission as a money extractor rather than the purpose it was established for?

We now know that the land adjacent to the airport which was proposed as an industrial area got its green light after the proponents of the project told the Commission they were prepared to cough up $5,000 dollars per acre of land zoned industrial which would then be turned over to the Northern Trust to administer.

While the word black mail is too strong, it is hard to find a sentence that would fit the manner in which the money was extracted from the developer.

When you consider that raw land is worth about $200-250 per acre, producing agriculture land is worth about $1,000 to $1500 per acre, five grand an acre just to develop that land around the airport comes very steep. Steep indeed given what has been thrown into the pot in the lower mainland where the real agriculture land is located.

Now even the City Of Richmond has gotten into the act.

After having a good sized chunk of land turned aside by the Agriculture Lands Commission they have returned to offer up a similar deal as the one negotiated in PG. Now given that there is a major shortage of land on the lower mainland for agriculture and given the difference in the growing season. Do you suppose the money from that deal will be turned over to the Northern Trust as well to develop agriculture land in this region, a region that it is extremely difficult to expand agriculture in?

The latest deal with the land Commission has all the trappings of "if you try to develop raw land, even though it may not be good agriculture land, we want a chunk of the action". The stage has been set and unless there are complaints it will in all likelihood become a standard in the future.

Has the idea anything to do with whether you are removing good agriculture land from production, of course not it has everything to do with how much money you can get from the project and that I believe is not why the Agriculture Land Commission was established in the first place.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 03:45 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: Jim13135 on August 12 2008 7:27 AM

Just goes to show how much profit can be made on this type of land deal. $5000 per acre, over and above the cost of aquisition??

I think it's great that they are willing to share some of the gravy through the Northern Trust.

Posted by: Harbinger on August 12 2008 1:03 PM

Northern Trust gonna get a fee for keeping the bank book up to date? Betcha it is gonna.

Posted by: Palopu on August 12 2008 7:59 PM

If the Government is going to take some land in the Shelly area and put it into the ALR to offset the land being taken out at the Airport, the obvious question is why wasnt the Shelley land put into the ALR at the get go.

Could it be because is was not considered Agriculture Land????

Posted by: Eagleone on August 12 2008 11:33 PM

Shelly is where a future industrial park will have to be located because of air-shed concerns, so by putting it in the ALR now they can then milk some more money for the Northern Trust when we need to take that land out of the ALR to build a potential industrial park? Your guess is as good as mine... probably better.