119 replies to this topic

[obscurantist]

...is all very well and good. But in Oak Bay? Perish the thought!

[url=http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/capital_van_isl/story.html?id=1ea2c84d-a365-4593-ac34-58a0606c64e6:8b1f5]Kim Westad, Times Colonist, August 4, 2007[/url:8b1f5]

The organic produce you pick up at a local farmer's market might have been grown in your neighbour's front garden.

Dozens of people have offered up their land to an Oak Bay couple who practise urban farming on residential land usually filled with ornamental flowers and shrubs. It's the first business of its type in B.C., and is modelled after a similar urban agriculture project in Saskatoon.

But Paula Sobie and Martin Scaia have run into an unusual problem in their own municipality: An Oak Bay bylaw bans growing plants for sale.

It was introduced in 2001 after waterfront Beach Drive estate "Riffington" was given farm status because owner Annabeth Black sold more than $2,500 of the plants annually.

Farm status meant the taxes of the estate at 3175 Beach Dr., were slashed. So Oak Bay tightened up its definition of agriculture to deal with the problem. But that's created a bit of an issue for Sobie and Scaia, whose City Harvest business sells the organic vegetables and produce grown on urban land at several markets. "We understand why the bylaw is there but we hope it can be changed," Sobie said yesterday.

She learned of the bylaw after planting several gardens in Oak Bay with vegetables. There was no complaint, and Oak Bay doesn't plan to have the gardens uprooted. Sobie simply stumbled on the bylaw when she did some checking of her own after a few people asked whether they were allowed to have their front garden as a vegetable patch.

Coun. Nils Jensen plans to bring it forward at council's next meeting later this month. "We'd have to tweak the bylaw to permit this kind of smaller, more focused approach," said Jensen, who supports the City Harvest approach to farming.

Sobie and Scaia, the parents of two young children, wanted to create work that allowed them time with their family and also helped them put their beliefs about sustainable living into practice.

They started City Harvest in February, advertising on the Internet for people who wanted to use all or part of their city property for an urban garden. In return, the homeowner receives a portion of the organic vegetables, while the couple sells the rest at markets, to restaurants and through the Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD) program.

The couple has no interest in farm status for their home, and neither do the owners of the dozen properties where they have urban gardens planted, they said. ...

[Holden West]

The Riffington farm was quite a loophole--grow $2,500 worth of food (which could include beehives for those "farmers" that don't like shoveling manure) and you get yourself a tidy $20,000 reduction in your yearly tax bill.

This week's Monday Magazine also has an urban agriculture issue but the Oak Bay bylaw isn't mentioned. Surely it's not because Monday publisher David Black is the owner of the Riffington mansion?

[VicHockeyFan]

http://www.timescolo...-week-1.2336560

 

Coun. Jeremy Loveday said the proposal represent a huge step forward in the promotion of food security — the ability to access affordable nutritious food — by allowing farming and farm stands throughout the city.

 

“We’re putting our money where our mouth is,” Loveday said. “We are making it feasible for people to participate in growing their own food in Victoria.”

 

The city’s Growing in the City proposals go to public hearing on Thursday, with written feedback accepted until Monday at midnight.

 

The bylaw changes would allow raw, unprocessed food such as fruits, nuts, seeds, eggs and honey to be grown, harvested and sold by farmers within the city.

 

Growers would require a $100 annual business licence to sell goods off-site. On-site sales — through a farmstand, for example — would require either an annual licence or a three-month licence, available for $25.

 

Farmstand hours would be limited to 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., except on Sundays, when the hours would be 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Loading of delivery trucks would be limited to once a day during the same hours.

 

- See more at: http://www.timescolo...h.3ZgJU0k6.dpuf

 

Whatever.  I predict a total of about 4 properties might take the City up on this.  And then 3 of them will drop it after one year, as their stands are stolen from.

[Rob Randall]

Affordable? Have you ever seen a farm stand with food cheaper than a supermarket? I'm not knocking it, I think it's great to have wider access to a variety of healthy food but let's get real.

[VicHockeyFan]

Any theft is disheartening, but what really hurts is being robbed of something that took a lot of effort to create. “It bothers me when someone steals a dozen eggs or a jar of jam, say.”

 

Sometimes it’s not just food or flowers, either. At the Dragonfly farm on Central Saanich’s Thomson Place, a succession of robberies cost Dorrien Thompson $400 to $500 in cash last year until he forked out $130 for a skookum cashbox made from steel pipe. He can sort of rationalize losing produce (“Maybe they’re hungry”) but it’s flat-out deflating when the bad guys make off with the coins and bills.

 

“It almost made me stop,” he said. “It’s a little farm stand. You don’t make a lot of money off it.”

 

Former Central Saanich mayor Jack Mar, who keeps his Veyaness Road self-serve stand going over the winter (he has carrots, cabbage, beets and kale, and just began picking rhubarb), says 2016 has been excellent so far. But some years, the thieves will frustrate him to the point that he pulls the plug. “When I get upset, I’ll close down for a week or so.” Then he’ll think, no, it’s not fair to his regular customers to let one bad apple spoil the barrel, so he’ll open the stand again.

 

The thieves aren’t always who you think, either. Thompson said a farmer friend caught a produce pilferer in the act. “The lady was about 50, was driving a Mercedes Benz and had just left yoga class.” That farmer now only opens her stand once a week, and won’t leave it unattended.

 

Likewise, Ian Munro, who with wife Liz Munro sells the raspberry plants and dahlias they (OK, really it’s just Liz) grow at their McTavish Road home, has noticed it’s often the nice cars that leave without paying.

 

- See more at: http://www.timescolo...h.o7hwYO94.dpuf

[VicHockeyFan]

^ Now take that situation into the City.

[todd]

^ Now take that situation into the City.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-8OeLPDwrA

[Nparker]

Who is going to be held accountable when someone gets sick or worse (and it will happen) from food purchased at a roadside stand sanctioned by the city but with quality controls from no one? Does this also mean someone can set up a restaurant in the city and not be subject to any sort of health & safety inspections? Why does one public food source get a pass while another is subject to rules and regulations?

[mbjj]

Didn't the city of Victoria also propose allowing residents to plant fruit and nut trees on their boulevards? If I plant one and move can I take it with me? What if it falls on someone's car in a storm? Or someone's head?

[Nparker]

Didn't the city of Victoria also propose allowing residents to plant fruit and nut trees on their boulevards?...What if it falls on someone's car in a storm? Or someone's head?

Who is responsible when the tree's roots bust up the sidewalk or road?

[nagel]

Affordable? Have you ever seen a farm stand with food cheaper than a supermarket? I'm not knocking it, I think it's great to have wider access to a variety of healthy food but let's get real.

Depends what you mean by cheaper.  Eggs $4 a dozen at a farm stand.  Yes you can get them for $2 in a store, but the comparable carton would be the $6 one in the store.

[nagel]

Who is responsible when the tree's roots bust up the sidewalk or road?

What if criminals hide out in the trees?  It's best if we just cut them all down to make sure nobody is doing anything illegal.

[Nparker]

What if criminals hide out in the trees?  It's best if we just cut them all down to make sure nobody is doing anything illegal.

Huh?

[nagel]

Huh?

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...nting-1.3749728

 

These people were decimated on the Internets about this.

[zoomer]

Some people are so divorced from reality in this city, or at least have such intense self-interest it turns them into blind fools.  Of course they don't see it as self-interest, but as the one truth and only right way. 

 

Case in point, urban farming zealots.  I heard some lady speak on Cfax last week complaining about changes regarding the Official Community Plan. 

 

Now for starters, I'm all for downtown farming, whether that's on rooftops, unused land, transitional land (Dockside Green), courtyards, etc.  I'm not for protecting and creating actual farmland in the centre of downtown!!  It's the least economical form of farming in terms of feeding more than just a neighbour or two, nevermind the environmental impact of pushing sprawl out into...farmland, or previous undeveloped land. 

 

Check out this Facebook page.

 

 

NEW DATES: AUG 19-SEPT 8

<<This campaign relates to settler government bylaws and community plans being applied to the traditional territories of the Lekwungen people. We recognize that this is stolen land and that decisions about land use that are made by settler government without free, prior informed consent continue violence and colonization against Indigenous peoples and lands.>>

 

Ok, hypocritical, patronizing statement to start with so they can feel smugly superior.  Why don't they get the hell off the land then and give it back to the First Nations?  Nope.. didn't think so.  There has been great injustice to the First Nations, yet are they not continuing the practice by growing their European crops on stolen land? Abandon the land, return the land to its original state and the First Nations so they can decide to return to camas harvesting if they so chose, or local berries, etc.  Great article here entitled Restoring Camas and Culture to Lekwungen and Victoria.

 

So, the site continues.. 

 

 

"The City of Victoria has been working on an initiative called Growing in the City... BUT under the guise of this initiative the city is also proposing to make changes to the Official Community Plan that undermine its stated objectives and the goals of the initiative.

Under the proposed change to the Official Community Plan, food production would become “subservient to the density, built form, place character, and land use objectives”. In other words, condo development -- which is all about gentrification and profit for developers, not building affordable housing -- will have higher priority than making sure there's soil to grow nutritious food. We believe that people need access to nutritious local food and affordable housing. We need both. Food production is not subservient to built development, and housing developments should provide housing for all, not just those with the highest of incomes.

 

 

Ok.. so St. Andrews apartments.. housing a few hundred people, which they were adamantly against..  Ahh, never mind I won't go on.. their points are so naive that it's like trying to convince someone that the world isn't actually flat.  

Edited by zoomer, 14 September 2016 - 11:35 AM.

[Nparker]

...We believe that people need access to nutritious local food and affordable housing. We need both. Food production is not subservient to built development, and housing developments should provide housing for all, not just those with the highest of incomes...

I'd like to see this explained in a way that doesn't take more money out of my wallet.

[zoomer]

ahh... got it, I wonder if we could build this on the the Mason Street farm site, plus relocate the other houses on that block heading towards Vancouver street?

 

You'd think the urban farmers would be all over this proposal from India no?  We could house hundreds of homeless and lower income citizens at the same time, they could make income by working at the farm - it's a dream come true right!

 

 

Designed in collaboration with agroecologist Amlankusum, Hyperions was created to achieve two major objectives: energy decentralization and food deindustrialization. The result combines urban agriculture, bio-based materials, and dense mixed-use planning into a self-sufficient development. The project comprises six 36-story connected towers built from cross-laminated timber sourced locally and sustainably from a Delhi forest. Reinforced with steel, the timber towers sit atop a steel and concrete substructure engineered for earthquake resistance and to take advantage of the earth’s thermal inertia for stable natural heating and cooling. The project is designed to achieve a net-zero environmental footprint with a recycling system that takes care of gray water, black water, and food waste on site. Energy for the buildings is generated via wind turbines and photovoltaic systems.

 

 

[todd]

ahh... got it, I wonder if we could build this on the the Mason Street farm site, plus relocate the other houses on that block heading towards Vancouver street?

You'd think the urban farmers would be all over this proposal from India no? We could house hundreds of homeless and lower income citizens at the same time, they could make income by working at the farm - it's a dream come true right!

https://www.youtube....h?v=4EWikCCfHJw
Recall watching this for the first time under the advice of a biologist "never watch biodome it's a disgrace to biology".

Edited by todd, 14 September 2016 - 11:08 PM.

[todd]

 

AMY SMART / TIMES COLONIST

 

OCTOBER 11, 2016 06:00 AM

 

 

Mushroom warning issued as Victorian becomes severely ill

Island Health is warning foragers to know their fungi, after someone was sent to hospital for eating what is believed to be one of the world’s deadliest mushrooms.

The mushroom was harvested a few days ago on a private residential property in downtown Victoria.

The individual, who Island Health has declined to identify by age or sex for privacy reasons, was flown to Edmonton for special treatment.

..................

......see more: http://www.timescolo...y-ill-1.2362077

 

death cap - amanita phalloides

 

 

[On the Level]

Yikes!  A nice fellow offered to take my wife and I picking chanterelle mushrooms over the weekend, but I declined.  I don't trust myself especially with the poisonous jack o'lantern mushroom looking somewhat the same.

 

We can count on growing tomatoes (100 lbs!), beans, eggplant, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, cucumber, peppers, etc etc and then can and freeze it.  we usually make enough to last the year.  A lot of work, but it tastes a lot better than food that is forced to ripen during transit.....and it's fun watching it come along throughout the growing season.  I'd go on about it being cheaper, but the CRD is hard at work making my water bill as big as they can.

 

I wonder, who has the lower carbon footprint?  My driving every day to work, or Isitt and Helps riding around on their bicycles having the majority of their food flown/driven hundreds of miles during the 9 months of the year they can't buy it locally?