I am glad to hear that North Saanich council has voted against the land swap deal with the owners of the Sandown property. I raised my concerns about the proposal in December and then again January.
I look at the relative risks and costs to North Saanich and I wonder why the council was willing to entertain such a liability. The benefits seemed ephemeral and distant at best.
One of the biggest aspects that remained unanswered was how the land would be managed and to what purpose. I fail to see how this land could be usefully managed for agriculture being owned by the municipality. The whole property being operated by a single farmer is likely too small to be a viable farming operation. The pie in the sky ideas of allotments for new farmers, educational activities and other ideas for the land. I do not think the municipality could recover the operating costs of the land.
Publicly owned land is not going to make for a good agricultural operation but at the same time removes a potential functional property from the agricultural community in this region.
This proposal only makes sense if 100% of the risk is taken on board by the current owner. The financial benefit to the owner is significant from the the re-zoning. There is more than enough money in re-zoning for the owner to still make a decent profit.
Adding the municipal land to the remaining Sandown land should be done by purchase by the current owner. The remaining agricultural land should be amalgamated into a single lot and then the owner be allowed to sell it. North Saanich gains a lot more through this. It does not have the risks associated with the proposal as it was but at the same time North Saanich gets more in taxes.
1 comment:
Thank you for your sane input into the whole Sandown debate. Unfortunately, sane discussion, has been lacking on this issue, with anyone not supporting the Mayor and her "vision for North Saanich, being villified. My husband spoke to council at the last meeting on Monday night, having independently reached many of the same conclusions as you. Fortunately, he was convincing enough that four councillors voted against going ahead with the proposal as drafted. Although, personally, I was initially in favor of aquiring the land, and asking questions later, there were always questions that bothered me. 1)The management issue. I don't think that I want a new government branch created around farm management. Municipal government is too involved in our lives as it is. And, frankly, they can't even run a respectable building department!
2) How to protect the Owl habitat that exists on fully a third of the designated farm portion. The ALC was pretty clear in its demand that all the property be farmed ultimately.
3) We were told initially that our rights to walking the property would be honored. Again, the ALC is pretty clear about NO PARK USE!, and that if walking trails were to be used, they had to be separated from farm plots by 6' high fencing.
4)Nowhere in the discussions, did I ever hear anyone address the issue of site servicing to the plots, ie.. providing water, access and sanitation facilities.
5) Affordable housing, where are the tenant farmers supposed to live? Everyone knows there IS NO AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN NORTH SAANICH!
6) Money minetraps galore! Thankfully my husband addressed those issues pretty completely, including that of subsidizing some farmers over others.
Anyway, once again, thank you for your input into the whole debate. It was not a popular position to take, but a brave one. All the "right thinking" people in the world don't like to be questioned.
Unpopular in North Saanich
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