Brendan Hurley makes the case for the Agricultural Land Reserve in The Straight:
As the Agricultural Land Reserve enters its fifth decade, two starkly different futures for our region are emerging. The allowance for exclusions from the land reserve has decreased the original agricultural land base by over 10 percent in the region, but development pressures are now sharply accelerating.
The Agricultural Land Commission currently has roughly 900 exclusion requests on its plate, and speculation is driving up the cost of farmland across the region. The proposed changes to the ALR in our region might promise the status quo, but that simply isn’t good enough; the only outcome of a weakened ALR is sprawl, from ocean to mountain, a tangled mass of pavement and traffic. In the developing areas of the province now surrounded by Zone Two ALR, sprawl is inevitable.
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While the Province’s division of the ALR into two zones has less impact on the farmlands of the Lower Mainland and Okanagan, watch for these things:
(1) The Panels.
From Vaughn Palmer in the Sun:
A second part of the legislative makeover will entrench six panels, one for each region within the two zones, as the prime decision-making bodies on the fate of agricultural land. Those panels will be appointed by cabinet from within the designated regions, with guidelines that can differ from zone to zone and region to region.
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(2) The Port.
It’s well known that some realtors and developers specializing in industrial properties have options on farmland, especially near Highway 17 and the South Fraser Perimeter Road, that they would like to target for port-related and intermodal uses. Will Port Metro Vancouver use its superior jurisdictional powers to facilitate removals?
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(3) The Courts.
Presuming that Metro Vancouver will appeal the Sharma decision that ruled Metro Vancouver does not have the power to veto decisions within local municipal boundaries, a lot rides on the outcome.
The ruling, which centres around a massive “urban-style” subdivision on 13 hectares of agricultural land in Langley Township, knocks most of the teeth out of the regional growth strategy adopted in 2011.
While the Green Zone is not the same as the ALR, clearly the message will be the same: Municipal desire to develop land for economic growth overrides preservation, and the Metro vision of a compact region is nullified.
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(4) The Next Removals.
As Hurley notes, there are a lot of appeals before the commission. Allowed withdrawals (and who makes them for whom) in the next few months will tell us a lot – and maybe not what a lot of us what to hear.
It makes complete sense to open up a debate on how land is used in a growing urban region. I am actually surprised that almost no changes were done for the Lower Mainland. It strikes me as far too static an approach for a growing region with 1M+ people expected here over the next 30 or so years, growing ports and shifting weather patterns. Every decade or 2 land use ought to be discussed given new context.
For example, rather than growing blueberries in Richmond or Delta, perhaps new land could be created by installing new dams 1-2 km into the sea east of the airport or Richmond, and topsoil from now ALR land could be used for this newly created land.
Land for ports, roads, public transit, industrial and/or residential use is required, and so is agricultural land use, and an adult debate about what goes where has to happen every few decades – and I do not see it actually in earnest for the Lower Mainland.