By tyler olsen Morning Star StaffAug 18 2006 http://www.vernonmorningstar.com/
Two proposals to remove farm land from the Agricultural Land Commission were stopped in their tracks by Coldstream council, Monday. The decision to not forward the applications to the land reserve is a roadblock to the efforts of two groups hoping to divide large agricultural parcels into smaller pieces.Coun. Bill Firman, who led the charge to decide to not to support the two proposals, said he was sorry to have to vote against the plans of a family that wanted to subdivide a large plot of farm land into smaller sections for five brothers. But, he said that the plot’s status as one of the largest intact pieces of farmland in Coldstream had to be preserved “That was a huge piece of property that they wanted to break up into half a dozen pieces. Besides the municipal plans, the Agricultural Land Reserve is one of our greatest assets.” Mayor Gary Corner voted along with Coun. Carol Williams to forward the applications to the land reserve.He said the decision to not support forwarding applications to the commission, where they can be approved or disapproved, signals a more cautious approach from this council. “I just think there’s a feeling that we don’t want to split up any more agricultural land into smaller parcels,” said Corner. Coun. Glen Taylor voted for one proposal and against another. Corner said in the past, council would forward applications to the Agricultural Land Reserve in situations where they wanted to preserve the land in the reserve with the confidence that the application would be turned down. However, Corner said this council did not want to take the chance that these plans would be approved.
The two proposals would have subdivided the land into smaller farm plots. The land would have still been used for agriculture, but because the land would no longer have been located in the land reserve, the owners would have been able to build on the subdivided land if they changed their mind.
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