![]() ![]() While controversy swirls around the Ontario government’s plan to turn over some of the Toronto Greenbelt for housing – a potential windfall for the wealthy developer friends of Premier Doug Ford – B.C.’s arms-length Agricultural Land Commission built a wall between politics and land speculators, and still serves as a bulwark against urban sprawl. Without the ALR, “all of this would be gone,” he says, waving a worn hand at fruit tree blossoms that were buzzing with bees on a warm spring afternoon. Romaine was a bureaucrat who helped map out the ALR, and after a career in land stewardship, he wanted to forge his own connection with the soil in retirement. The reserve, which limits use of the land for agriculture, applies to the almost five per cent of the province that is deemed to be capable of being farmed productively. It passed a law in April of 1973 to preserve the province’s capacity to produce food through the creation of the Agricultural Land Reserve. That government did what no other province was willing to do then, or since. This land, given its proximity to the city, would have been gobbled up for housing long ago, but for a policy decision made 50 years ago.īritish Columbia’s small portion of arable land – the verdant valley bottoms and deltas – was being converted to housing and shopping malls at a rate of 6,000 hectares each year when Dave Barrett’s New Democratic Party government came to power in 1972. Chickens and nectarine blossoms are part of Mr.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |