Removing Land From ALR At Airport Should Have Been A Given

Monday, June 16, 2008 03:46 AM

Given the location of the land and the proposed use, it is hard to understand why the BC Agricultural Land Commission is taking its time in letting the 2800 acres needed for the airport expansion be taken out of the Agricultural Land Reserve.

If, for some mysterious reason, the Commission decides the land should remain in the ALR, the preverbal ---- will hit the fan. Trying to make some sort of comparison to the agriculture land in and around the lower mainland with what we have here just doesn’t cut it.

Every few weeks someone gets another chunk of ground out of the ALR in the lower mainland to build yet some more housing and there certainly is a better argument to be made for the agricultural use of those properties compared to what we have here.

We have been told in the past that we should consider greenhouses as a way of using some of this agricultural land. That‘s a nice suggestion in the lower mainland where the temperature rarely goes below freezing, but what about up here? When it is -40F outside what are we supposed to heat the greenhouses with and at what cost?

The 2800 acre project in question is not a panacea to overcome the economic woes that we face in this region, but it is the best that we have to offer at this moment and we had better seize upon the opportunity.

With that in mind, it was hard to understand why the Land Commission did not simply rubber stamp the area in question to be removed from the agricultural land reserve, unless of course they are still trying to make comparisons between the climates of the lower mainland and the central interior, which would show a complete lack of understanding about our climate and winters in this part of the world.

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

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Posted on Monday, June 16, 2008 03:46 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: Wileycoyote on June 16 2008 6:38 AM

I totally agree. Come on now lets get it over with now guys!!!!

Posted by: northern taxpayer on June 16 2008 7:05 AM

I smell a honest toiling realator behind this somewhere there must be a real job for the land speculator.Any way the focus is why are we letting our governments shut this down, they are in control of the printing of our currency - are they that money hungary or is it done to keep the north reliant on jimmy pattison's food supply? and re direct any farming to a more suitable area like near their home town.bring back the farm and leave some tax money here.

Posted by: giterdun on June 16 2008 7:39 AM

I smell a RAT in Vancouver trying to squash developement in the north.

Posted by: Jim13135 on June 16 2008 8:49 AM

They should just shut down the commission and let market forces determine what is done with the land, the ALR concept is nothing more than social engineering to protect the profit margins of some land speculators. It's hard to imagine why a pro business government would leave this communistic type of thing continue to exist.

Posted by: Bridge on June 16 2008 10:19 AM

There is a food shortage around the world. Saving agricultural land from industrial or resdentiail use is a given. It is no different then some of the other things we try to do to keep our environment healthy.

We dont need green houses to grow food. Across the road from the airport is the old Federal experiamental farm. All it grows now is weeds but many different food crops can could be grown there for local use. Our climate here is suitable for all sorts of root crops.

Like most of the things done in our City the airport is over rated and will eventauly end up as a liability. We cant hang onto the air lines that flew into the airport. Just waite untill Horizon collects their 400 thousand bucks the city is committed too. Seems all we see is "big city" when all we have is a small town population.

Cheers

Posted by: tinyapplecork on June 16 2008 11:50 AM

Good post Bridge. I agree.

If -40F (that is pretty cold Ben) is a reason to not have ALR then we wouldn't have the praries sustaining our bread basket! We zone land to plan for the future. If there is a good reason that can be acted on today by the airport to expand, then yes go ahead and rezone it. But replace the land acreage taken out by rezoning it somewhere else. Rubberstamping?? Wow, then the people wouldn't have a say....can't have it both ways.
Greenhouse operators do exist here. Take the seedling operations as an example. So I disagree.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on June 16 2008 1:17 PM

I'm with you Bridge!
Good post.
And I smell politics!

Posted by: giterdun on June 16 2008 2:41 PM

I'am with you Ben. Too much bureaucracy. Study after study and still no shovel in the ground. This province is going backwards fast.

Posted by: Foo738 on June 16 2008 2:50 PM

If we are voting, I am with Bridge. We need to be growing our own food. I am not an expert but I am guessing the Experimental Farm was located there for a good reason.

Posted by: giterdun on June 16 2008 4:28 PM

Foo738 You are right, the experimental farm is there but to my knowledge no food has been grown there since the natives took it over. Maybee good only for hay, and there is lots of land around for growing hay. It dosen't have to be grown beside an airport. If the experimental farm is good for growing food, then why arn't the owners doing it.

Posted by: Palopu on June 16 2008 5:53 PM

I agree with bridge. The property on Lansdowne road below the cemetary used to be all agriculture with acres and acres of Potatoes, Cabbage, Carrots, Beets, etc; They had huge underground root houses to store their products. These facilities kept ^Prince George in root vegetables. It is now a rundown trailer court. There are many other areas that could produce vegetables in this town.

Prince Georges idea of growth is to tear down a 3 or 4 Million facility such as the playhouse theatre, replace it with a car lot, and then build a 20 Million Performing Arts Centre that can sit empty for most of the year, like the stupid SportsPlex on the hill.

This town and Province is run by the ***Good Old Boys Club*** so you can rest assured they will get this property out of the ALR.

Posted by: diplomat on June 16 2008 7:31 PM

Canada is the second largest country in the world. We do not have a shortage of any kind of land.

We also have a very low population density. Take the land out of the ALR and let's get on with the airport expansion.

"...the experimental farm is there but to my knowledge no food has been grown there..."

Well, exactly.

Posted by: socredible on June 16 2008 9:40 PM

Why, instead of an Agricultural Land Reserve Act did we not have a "Soils Preservation Act"?

It's the topsoil that's lost when we pave over or otherwise develop agricultural lands. There's nothing that prevents us from removing that arable soil and depositing it elsewhere. Even on the farm lands that make up the Fraser River delta, the river no longer deposits any more soil on them, since it's been dyked. There is nothing I can see that would be lost in using any of those lands for some higher purpose provided the soil was first removed and deposited elsewhere.

If the original intent of the ALR was solely to preserve our future ability to grow our own food, I have no problem fully supporting that. But a Soils Preservation Act would do the same thing.

If it had a DIFFERENT intent, however, like making developable land artificially scarce, (which it did), and thereby driving up its price if it's outside the ALR, (which it did), and thereby enabling a Government to get more revenue in property taxes off of it because of increases in assessments based on those higher prices, (which it also did), then that's something else again.

Posted by: diplomat on June 16 2008 10:48 PM

Saving topsoil is an excellent idea if the land is mostly paved over.

The ALR apparently was a brainchild of the NDP and full of good intentions. If used with common sense it actually works pretty well. But, it does have certain effects as outlined above.

Posted by: owl on June 17 2008 1:16 AM

"When it is -40F outside what are we supposed to heat the greenhouses with and at what cost?"

Greenhouses in the north are used primarily to extend the season. When it is -40C outside, one typically would not have to heat the building. If constructed properly, the temperature inside a greenhouse would be much warmer than outside at such times. That is the whole idea of greenhouses in colder climates.

The experimental farm, or some similar area, should be used to do research on what can be grown here from the point of view of economics, both protected and unprotected.

One of these days transportation costs will dictate that we do so. Until then, lets build over the agricultural land we have and then, when that land becomes more valuable for agriculture rather than storage of goods between here and there, the buildings will either be torn down or converted to greenhouse components. It is really not much different than anything else we do.

Planning has been thrown out the window around here some time ago. We have plenty of everthing. Why sweat the small stuff? No one else does.

Hey, anyone see the IPG ad at the top of the page here? "airports"??? I could swear we only have one airport. Are we building another?

;-)

Posted by: tinyapplecork on June 17 2008 9:19 PM

It just occured to me...that area just may well be suitable for bio diesel development!
Any takers???