All parties involved in the Gordon Head feedlot war should sit down and work out a way to resolve the issue. A feedlot in a suburban area tends to depress real estate values, and a feedlot too close to houses poses a potential threat to public health.
The feedlot is being operated on a 1.64-hectare island of farmland in the residential area not far from the Mount Douglas Golf Course. The land has been in the Alberg family since 1945, and has been used for growing fruit trees, raising chickens and grazing cattle, but those agricultural activities were phased out nearly a decade ago, and the Albergs have been working on a 16-lot residential development for several years.
During that time, they have been doing an uneasy dance involving the District of Saanich and the Agricultural Land Commission. The Albergs have applied to Saanich to have the land rezoned for the development, but the municipality wants to see the land removed from the ALR before it considers rezoning.
Don Alberg, one of three siblings who own the land, said he鈥檚 afraid to have the agricultural designation removed without an assurance that the rezoning application will be approved.
In the face of that stalemate, the Albergs decided to run a feedlot operation on the property, a permitted use under the ALR. They started last year with about 24 cattle and are planning to triple that number this winter.
A feedlot in a residential area is a bad neighbour 鈥� the smells are horrendous, the manure attracts hordes of flies and the feeding of cattle inevitably attracts rats and helps them thrive.
People who build homes in agricultural areas should not complain about the sights and smells of farming activities, but in this case, the feedlot is the latecomer to the scene. Establishing the feedlot might sound spiteful, but an agrologist determined that the land was not suitable for crops.
That leaves the Albergs with few choices 鈥� even if the land is not used, they would still have to pay taxes on it. They are entirely within their rights to feed cattle on their farmland.
Even if the plot were covered with rich soil, trying to farm such a small acreage for profit would be an uncertain proposition. Many of the Island鈥檚 small farmers with more land than that struggle to make minimum wage or break even.
The ALR is necessary. Without its protection, too much productive sa国际传媒 farmland would be lost to development. But the rules shouldn鈥檛 be inflexible; they should not protect land that is useless for farming.
Those rules are indeed flexible 鈥� the ALC hears several hundred applications a year for inclusion and exclusion of land. From April 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014, the ALC approved the inclusion of 1,187 hectares and the exclusion of 2,195 hectares, which means the ALR shrank by 1,008 hectares in that year.
Nearly five million hectares are protected by the ALR; the loss of 1.64 hectares of marginal farmland in Gordon Head won鈥檛 diminish sa国际传媒 agriculture to any measurable degree, but it would help bring about a desirable development in an established suburban area.
This isn鈥檛 about protecting farmland, it鈥檚 about technicalities and procedures. Surely, the two sides of this dispute should be able to get together, establish some trust and work out a solution that satisfies the law and is within the bounds of common sense.
