Maple Ridge council is to decide on three applications to remove property from the agricultural land reserve on Tuesday, including one by the Aquilini group of companies, and another for an 118-year-old farm.
Council was to vote on three proposals, adding up to 78 acres, to remove agricultural land, mainly to allow development for light industrial use.
Kevin Davison is proposing that 20 acres at 22080-128th Ave., home of the Davison Dairy Farm, including lots owned by his brother and sister, be removed.
The Davison family has farmed that property since 1900 and he’s aware of its heritage value. But Davison said it’s now too close to the subdivisions and roads to continue as an agricultural operation.
His four children all want to continue farming, but to do that, they need more land. Excluding the property will allow the family to buy more land in the Interior and triple capacity of the dairy farm.
“We’re farming in the middle of the city,” said Davison. “We have street lights and sidewalks outside our farm gate. Farms just don’t have that.”
Growing traffic congestion along 128th Avenue and constant complaints from residents when they’re spreading manure, add to the difficulties.
City of Maple Ridge bylaws manager Robin MacNair, however, said the city hasn’t received any complaints about the farm, though she added those about smells aren’t covered under city bylaws.
If the Davison land comes out of the Agricultural Land Reserve, the family would move the entire operation to the Interior. If council says no, and refuses to forward it to the land commission, they’ll keep farming it, though the family’s main dairy operation will still move to the Interior.
Davison said he’d had been thinking about applying for a long time, before he’d heard of the other concurrent exclusion application before council seeking the removal of 56 acres of land owned by the Golden Eagle Farm Group, part of the Aquilini group of companies, on 203rd Street and Golden Ears Way.
It makes sense to allow development of the serviced land along the south side of 128th Avenue to meet the city’s need for industrial or business park land, Davison added.
About 15 per cent of the milk the farm produces is allocated, via the milk marketing board, to Golden Ears Cheesecrafters, next door, operated by Davison’s brother, Kerry Davison, and his family.
“Everything south of that should be the new urban-rural boundary. It only makes sense,” he said. “If it opens the floodgates for applications, so be it. It’s the council’s job to decide what they want to do with that.”
A third ALR exclusion application called for removing 2.4 acres on 250th Street, at a site where a proposed poultry farm met opposition from residential neighbours.
It would become a residential development.
The Golden Eagle Farm Group property, formerly the Pelton tree nursery, would be developed for a business park, movie studio and temporary accommodation for movie industry professionals, which would employ 925 people, says a staff report to council.
The applicant, Golden Eagle Farm Group, would offer an equivalent amount of land in Pitt Meadows that is currently used for blueberry production to be included in the ALR.
The proposal would also include agricultural uses, as the applicant would donate five acres to the University of the Fraser Valley to be used for incubator farms for new farmers. There would also be a donation of $2 million in land, cash and facilities to the university to develop a food innovation centre.
It would also offer processing space for local farmers, and space for the Haney Farmer’s Market storage.
The report from staff notes that Maple Ridge’s commercial and industrial strategy identified the need for 200 acres of additional industrial land.
“The Commercial and Industrial Strategy recognizes the need for additional employment lands, but with the exception of the Albion flats, cautions against relying on exclusion applications for meeting this need,” says the report by planner Diana Hall.
“The merits of this application are the contributory measures to offset the loss of agricultural land, and its support of small scale agriculture,” it added.
The report also included a submission to the Agricultural Land Commission by Jim Chu of Golden Eagle in May, in which he states:
“As the proponent, Golden Eagle Farms is B.C.’s largest cash crop farmer and we believe we have invested more into farming locally and world-wide than any other private sector farmer in B.C. We have the technical and corporate competencies to ensure the agricultural improvements outlined in this proposal will be made.
“Golden Eagle Farms and the Aquilini Group are not farm land speculators. This is the first-ever application by companies controlled by the Aquilini family for an ALR exclusion.”
The Davison application makes comparisons to the Golden Eagle proposal, saying the 20.5 acre site is the more logical place for business development land.
“The Aquilini property is on the north side of 128th Ave. and not adjacent to existing development. The Aquilini proposal would create a situation where we have a large swath of farm land in between existing urban development and the new business development. Again, it seems more logical to contain any new development on the south side of 128th Ave,” said their application.
The other application, for one hectare, is by Eva Pozsar, at 12225-250th Street. She bought the farm to start a poultry operation with her husband Andrew. They did a neighbourhood survey in January 2017 and the results were “disastrous.”
“The neighbourhood immediately became very angry about the farming proposal. We had no other choice but to temporary abandon our farming plans in March 2017,” says their proposal. They site a lack of buffering from their farm.
“Unfortunately, the City of Maple Ridge allowed our residential neighbours to completely destroy the buffer and build structures only five feet from the ALR boundary. By now there is absolutely no separation between my farmland and my residential neighbours.”
The city staff report notes that other types of agriculture “could actually benefit from closer proximity to residential development.”
“Should this application prove successful, it will reduce the land base in the Agricultural Land Reserve within the community and likely increase speculative interests in agricultural properties next to residential development,” said the staff report.
Already opponents of removing these lands from the ALR have been voicing their opposition.
“In a poll taken a few years ago, 80 per cent of the population of Maple Ridge wished to see the agricultural character of Maple Ridge protected,” said Charlen Fiehn.
“There was a petition in 2016 to the Maple Ridge Mayor and council, started by a Carly O’Rourke, which states ‘Climate change, peak oil and the need for sustainable food lands are major reasons to protect and maintain the Agricultural Land Reserve for future needs.’
“Nothing has changed since then. Say no to the application to exclude this land from the Agricultural Land Reserve.”