Parksville council is looking for public input on an application to remove 11.2 hectares (27.7 acres) from the Agricultural Land Reserve, though they clearly don’t like the idea themselves.
“I can think of a million reasons why this is a bad idea,” said Coun. Carrie Powell-Davidson pointing to its value as natural filtration beside the city’s well field, and a presentation by ornithologist Christopher Stevens about it being home to 87 bird species and having huge potential for tourism and research.
The Alberta-based owners of the land, Ermineskin Tribal Enterprises (ETE), have applied four times unsuccessfully to remove portions of the 35.9 hc. (88.7 acre) property from the ALR.
The property, at Renz Road and Hirst Avenue, is currently a mix of forest and wetland neighbouring the city’s Springwood well field, an active farm, the Lodgepole Drive neighbourhood and a large-scale housing development to the north.
ETE successfully removed the Lodgepole area from the ALR and developed that single family neighbourhood, providing the well field to the city in exchange.
The current application doesn’t say what ETE hopes to do with the property, but they are applying to remove about a third from the ALR, add 3.85 hc. not currently in the ALR and deed 13 hc. to the city for public use, suggesting a park.
“Council did make a decision and did seek to purchase this property, at the end of last year,” mayor Chris Burger said, explaining he couldn’t say much about the in-camera negotiations.
“I can only say the property owners did not wish to sell,” he said, adding he did tell them explicitly during those talks that he didn’t think council was likely to support an exclusion from the ALR.
A staff report on the exclusion application is expected later in the summer but in the meantime council is looking for feedback.
“Essentially what we’re going to have to do is measure this on the perceived community benefit,” Burger said, pointing out there are several big steps before the land could be developed.
He suggested that without council’s support the Agricultural Land Commission would barely even consider the application and even with council’s support “frankly they would likely say no.”
On top of that the property is outside the city’s urban containment boundary, which means the Regional District of Nanaimo would have some input into any developments and finally the property would have to be re-zoned from agricultural.
“We do have to maintain open minds but that doesn’t mean we can’t express our opinions,” he said.
Other councillors spoke about the value of the land as wetland and green space in general.
“I would hope the city would continue to follow up to purchase this property,” said Al Geir, “This should be a high priority.”
The preliminary application from ETE points out there is no evidence the land has ever been farmed
