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COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • SEPTEMBER 2017


Consolidation strengthens ALR exclusion bid Bradner owners sell as Abbotsford seeks land exclusion for industrial uses


by PETER MITHAM ABBOTSFORD – Owners of 22


parcels in an area that Abbotsford would like to see removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve for industrial development have sold to Pacific Land Group.


The properties have been under


contract for eight years, according to Chris Morrison, an executive vice- president with Colliers International, who worked to broker the deal with Chris MacCauley, a former Colliers broker now with CBRE Ltd. The principals of Pacific Land Group


are veteran Vancouver investor Joe Segal and Ron Emerson, who has also been working with landowners adjacent to the Deltaport container facility in Delta. “Mr. Segal … ultimately has gone and acquired all the sites on a speculative basis, hoping they’ll come out of the ALR,” Morrison said. “It’s been a pretty crazy situation, even just hand-holding some of the vendors over the last few weeks and months – and years, for that matter.” The move to close on the


Abbotsford purchase came as Abbotsford council voted to seek the exclusion of 696 acres from the Agricultural Land Reserve for industrial development. The bid will include approximately 350 acres adjacent to Langley’s Gloucester Industrial Estates. The remainder lies north of


Abbotsford International Airport. The city says it lacks a sufficient supply of industrial land for future development. While it has about 600 acres of vacant industrial land – more than a quarter of its total industrial land base of 2,059 acres – just 212 acres are suitable for development once environmental factors are taken into consideration. A large portion of parcels in the Mount Lehman area secured through a previous exclusion application under the City in the Country Plan in 2005, for example, is not suitable for development. Abbotsford claims it needs additional industrial land to support economic development and provide local jobs as the city prepares to be home to 200,000 people. The shortage means companies that need space must either cannibalize the existing stock or look elsewhere if they require more than a couple of acres. Agriculture-related industries are


affected as much as manufacturing and other sectors. A lack of large, rail- oriented sites in Abbotsford saw MolsonCoors pick Chilliwack for its new brewery, for example. Pacific Coast Heavy Truck Group and Pacific Dairy Centre Ltd. have also located in Chilliwack. Most recently, a deal for the former


Brookside Foods Ltd. plant adjacent to Vanderpol Eggs and Golden Valley Foods on Mount Lehman Road will see the buyer reconfigure the plant for


non-agrifood uses. Save the farmland


Still, the loss of farmland to industrial development – even if it accommodates food processing – doesn’t sit well with area residents such as Jill Robbins, who operates K&M Farms with her parents and wrote to the city on behalf of the BC Young Farmers to protest the exclusion bid. She argues that Abbotsford hasn’t made the best use of the land it acquired in 2005 under the City in the Country Plan. Indeed, a review Country Life in BC conducted of the properties found that of 48 parcels excluded in 2005, just 15 host some kind of industrial use. The majority retain agricultural zoning; a handful of these are used for truck parking. With the city making the same


arguments for exclusion this time, Robbins isn’t expecting a different outcome. “It didn't create barely any jobs as


it’s mostly gone to truck parking,” she said of the last bid. “This new land will produce no jobs and agriculture can produce jobs and is a third of Abbotsford’s GDP!” Cherry Groves, a long-time daffodil


grower who lives on 40 acres with her husband not far from Pacific Land Group’s properties, agrees. She dreads the impact on surrounding properties, including her own.


“Some of the families here have been here for four or five generations and they’re still farming it, and we don’t want to change that,” she said. “It’s going to create havoc of traffic through here for a few jobs that people may get there.” Pacific Land Group had its own bid


for the properties’ exclusion rejected by the Agricultural Land Commission last year and Groves says the city shouldn’t be allowed to reapply – effectively, on the company’s behalf. “To my way of thinking, if you’ve


refused it, you’ve refused it – period,” she said.


She is hopeful that the new BC NDP


government will take steps to strengthen protections for designated agricultural lands. “This Lana Popham sounds like


she’s committed to the ALR,” she said of BC’s new agriculture minister. Popham declined to comment on the potential exclusion bid in Abbotsford, however, telling Country Life in BC that she wanted to respect the impartiality of the process. She added that the government’s plan to eliminate the land commission’s system of six regional panels would further the cause of impartiality by ensuring that local applications are considered within a provincial context. “One panel lends itself to less potential political interference,” Popham said.


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