O’Keefe RV park criticized

By Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star Published: January 15, 2009 6:00 PM

Revenue-generating plans at cash-strapped O’Keefe Ranch are running into some opposition. Will Hansma, Spallumcheen mayor, is critical of a proposal by the O’Keefe Ranch and City of Vernon to build a 100-unit RV park on 20 acres at the historic site. “It’s probably some of the best agricultural land in Spallumcheen,” he said. The City of Vernon owns O’Keefe Ranch but the operation is located within Spallumcheen. “If there was an alternate site on the ranch, it would be more palatable to the Agricultural Land Commission. I find it unpalatable as someone who supports agriculture,” said Hansma of the RV park. Officials have stated in the past that the site on St. Anne’s Road was selected because of its proximity to the ranch’s heritage buildings without negatively impacting the historical nature of the tourist attraction. The ranch’s application to the ALC asks for an RV park to be considered a non-farm use within the gricultural Land Reserve and not for the property to be removed from the ALR.

However, Hansma insists that farming may provide more of a solution to creating revenue than an RV park. “Intensive farm operations on 20 acres could generate the kind of money an RV park would,” he said. “We have to come up with something better than we are looking at.” Wayne Lippert, Vernon’s mayor, questions whether just farming the land would generate the necessary revenue that O’Keefe Ranch needs to become financially viable. He also insists that the RV park is not an indication of the city abandoning the importance of agriculture. “We’ve looked at incorporating agriculture around where the RVs would be parked, like orchards,” he said. A final decision on the use of the land on St. Anne’s Road rests with the Agricultural Land Commission.