NOVEMBER 2016 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
Kelowna cracking down on land reserve abuse Farming needs to be primary use or else ...
by TOM WALKER
KELOWNA – Todd Cashin is the person in charge of keeping agriculture in Kelowna’s Agriculture Land Reserve. With 50% of the city zoned A-1 (agriculture), it’s a busy job but Cashin doesn’t have to go it alone. He is supported by Kelowna city council and a strong Agriculture Advisory Committee.
“Kelowna is full of entrepreneurs,” explains Cashin, the suburban and rural planning manager at Kelowna City Hall. It’s this drive, plus opportunity, that causes problems with A-1 land within city limits.
“You see guys getting into the construction industry or landscaping and maybe they can’t afford industrial commercial space. So, they start leasing cheaper farm land and running the business out of their house,” says Cashin. “By year five, all the guys are mustering on that property at 7 am creating noise, compacting soil, maybe stripping and selling the soil and starting to store equipment and materials.” Cashin says they are seeing an increase in those situations. “So, we decided we were going to target one area and try and get the community to buy in.”
“We went to council with what we call the Benvoulin
Corridor Agriculture Compliance Strategy, told them we were going to be fair but firm. But this was the problem.”
Cashin says they are looking at individual cases and trying to work with businesses to be compliant.
“We really want to minimize non-farm use. If you want to have a small business which we can support, construction or landscaping can’t be your primary use.”
Council recently turned down an application for non- farm use. The property had been leased since 2003 and had expanded as a landscape and irrigation business. Kelowna mayor Collin Basran summarized council’s position.
“I recognize you are trying to take some measures to bring it up to compliance by planting more nursery stock and make it more of a farm venture," he was quoted as saying. "But this to me is clearly what we are trying to stop in our community." Council refused to forward the application to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC). The applicant was sent back to work with city staff to make the operation compliant. A second thorn in Cashin’s side comes from RV parks. “We were seeing RV parks popping up or people enquiring saying, “I want to build an RV park like my
neighbour.” You go back through the air photos of the property and you realize it’s a farm, but now it’s an RV park. “Not only has the footprint of the RV park expanded but the rest of the property is not being farmed because there is too much revenue generated at the RV park and there is not the motivation to farm. “About five years ago, we started to make sure that farming was the primary activity on the property and started targeting the abusers,” Cashin explains. “We have been in court dealing with a number of these.” “It is supposed to be seasonal; it’s supposed to be for tourists, not permanent; it can’t become low-income housing. You have to watch the footprint; it can’t take over the property,” Cashin says. “But more important than anything else, you’ve got to farm. You can’t have agri-tourism without agri; it just doesn’t work.” Cashin acknowledges that several older RV parks closer to the lake have been turned into condos.
“Council wonders if maybe we should be looking at lands on the outskirts of town and specifically zoning them for new RV parks.”
It’s a popular spot for
wealthy folks who are not used to being told no.
“Some just don’t care. All they want is their 8,000 square foot home in the middle of an orchard,” says Cashin. “And it doesn’t help that the realtor has told them they can build a
second residence on the property. “
“I’m meeting with a woman who has a built a carriage house on her million-dollar property,” he says. “Our paperwork says she applied to build worker housing and now she and the real estate agent are mad at me. It’s not right that we become the bad guys.” The Agriculture Advisory Committee (AAC) is a huge part of the process. Cashin says their level of expertise has really helped.
“We re-structured the committee so we look for someone with a soil
background, someone with an irrigation background and we are always looking for an orchardist.”
The AAC knows what’s going on in the community
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and they know about agri- business.
“They can’t be BS’d,” says Cashin. “Applicants used to say, “It’s impossible for me to farm.” and the committee would say, “Oh well, okay; it’s impossible to farm.” Now, they are asking tougher questions. There are people out there who do very well at farming in our community.”
Experience with wetlands 15 years ago gave Cashin a model to follow.
“Filling in wetlands used to be the thing to do and although we had awesome policy in place, I couldn’t be an enviro-cop. It wasn’t until we got community buy-in that we started to see success,” he recalls. “Nowadays, if you see
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