A proposal to swap out a portion of Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) land in Langdale is heading to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) for consideration, but Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) directors avoided recommending the application be granted.
At the Oct. 10 SCRD planning committee meeting, directors voted unanimously on a motion by Area F director Mark Hiltz for the application to move ahead to the ALC. The motion also stated “the board is not in a position to provide a recommendation to approve the application.”
The applicant’s intent is to remove ALR designation on a portion of land in a corner of the property, which could then be subdivided off, and then designate another portion of land as ALR land.
The SCRD could not confirm the size of the land to be swapped, which was identified as 0.3 hectares, but which applicant David Morgan said is listed as 1.16 hectares in BC Assessment records. And there is no current agrologist report available for the land, a 40-hectare property off the Port Mellon Highway near the YMCA subdivision.
The staff report recommended directors support the application as long as the location and size of the non-ALR land being considered for the swap is confirmed, and as long as the applicant could prove the section to be excluded from the ALR parcel is unsuitable for agriculture.
Since that information wasn’t available, Hiltz argued for another option – to authorize the application to move ahead to the ALC for formal review, but to forgo giving it board support. “I do not feel comfortable making a recommendation about the value of this action with regards to agricultural land,” said Hiltz, explaining his rationale for the motion.
“The highest and best use of agricultural land is agriculture and it is true that the Sunshine Coast is a challenging place with highly variable land,” he said, calling his motion “a balance of private interest and public interest.”
Directors also received seven letters and a petition signed by 32 nearby residents objecting to the application. “The main concerns of the residents’ responses,” said the staff report, “are the lack of notice about the application and opportunity to participate in the process, the validity of agricultural suitability of the lands proposed for exchange, and potential impact of future development on this neighbourhood.”
The ALC is expected to make a final determination on the size of the non-ALR land after it formally reviews the application.
