7 replies to this topic

[Robb]

Article in yesterday's Saanich News

Property owner wanted to subdivide his 4-acre property for housing... opts for 12,000-bird poultry farm instead.

July 23rd Council minutes

Rezoning application

Site plan

[Bob Fugger]

Article in yesterday's Saanich News

Property owner wanted to subdivide his 4-acre property for housing... opts for 12,000-bird poultry farm instead.

July 23rd Council minutes

Rezoning application

Site plan

LOL! Good for them for erecting a giant middle finger to Saanich Council and the idiot local food ideologues that addressed council but otherwise had no skin in the game. I feel bad for the neighbours but at the same time, if it was me, I'd have opted to farm mushrooms and pigs.

[Sparky]

Having looked at the background information (thanks Robb) the situation here is similar to what happens when residential development happens in an area where there are a few parcels that remain in there natural agricultural state. This happens usually when there is a long family history with a particular property.

Once that history changes, the surrounding residents rather enjoy the open space and do not want to see it changed into the same as what they have.

There was a fellow in Central Saanich a number of years ago who had the neighborhood build up around him. When he found himself at retirement age he finally decided to subdivide, the neighbours were up in arms at the public hearings and the development was declined.

He went into the pig farming business as Bob suggested. To augment his pig farming he grew cabbage on the side. Needless to say he didn't always get around to harvesting the cabbage.

A couple of years later when he refiled his rezoning application he had full community support. God bless democracy, even if it gets a little $hitty at times.

[dasmo]

Looked like a nice subdivision. Tough call on the result though. Personally I think we will all be glad we had the ALR in the future. I hope the poultry farm is a big success and inspires other farms to get productive. A shiitake mushroom farm would be a profitable venture I'm sure.
If this is going to be a revenge farm, it will suck for the neighbours...

[aastra]

What is it about Victoria and community plans that nobody actually wants to see come to fruition?

[Bob Fugger]

Looked like a nice subdivision. Tough call on the result though. Personally I think we will all be glad we had the ALR in the future. I hope the poultry farm is a big success and inspires other farms to get productive. A shiitake mushroom farm would be a profitable venture I'm sure.
If this is going to be a revenge farm, it will suck for the neighbours...

While I agree in principle that the ALR is laudable and farmland ought to be preserved, the agrologist's report that the owner commissioned in this particular case (see the linked documents in the first post) confirmed that the land quality was not very arable and very poor in general. Hence the poultry farm rather than crops.

[LocalMom]

Interesting Mayor Frank Leonard tweeted that the farmer could 'still face issues with building permits', no?

[Nparker]

I am not comfortable with a mayor "tweeting" public business.