Jennifer Smith - Kelowna Capital News Published: March 17, 2009 10:00 PM
In 2008,Tim Valeriote’s growing landscape business won him a flowery Communities in Bloom Award from the City of Kelowna for his efforts to clean up a once derelict property where his business now sits, at the corner of Beetlestone and Benvoulin roads. Just a few months later, however, the young entrepreneur faces eviction from his own property, a potential loss of business, if not loss of the business itself—all because the very city willing to hand him that award now says Hampton Landscaping never conformed to its bylaws. Valeriote’s operation sits on property zoned for agricultural use. Although it’s not in the Agricultural Land Reserve, Kelowna city council is unwilling to grant him a rezoning, effectively saying they would rather force the successful operation out than allow non-agricultural businesses to operate on farmland. “In my case, I thought it was a matter of principle,” explained Coun. Luke Stack on Monday afternoon as he and several like-minded of his council colleagues upheld a decision to oust Hampton from his business location.The new zone would require Valeriote to bring in city sewer lines, a requirement he neither wants nor needs to run the business, but one designed to service the commercial buildings anticipated with commercial or industrial zoning. When Valeriote bought the corner lot in 2006, the old site of A-1 Meats, he paid extra to buy the meat business believing he too could then run a business on the property where A-1 Meat had been in operation for 25 years. But agricultural property zones are complicated and only small businesses where the owner lives on site are permitted.
Licensed with the city, his landscaping operation was registered to a post office box when he purchased the property.Although he maintained his license, he never changed the address on file. Then again, no one ever asked him why he was operating a landscaping operation from a postal box address when he registered with the city. And between the two indiscretions, somehow Valeriote’s case has opened a pandora’s box of problems for small business enterprises on agricultural land in Kelowna, one worthy of a city-wide investigation, according to council. Monday afternoon, council opted to conduct a review of the permitted uses for agricultural land, assemble a report on the number of non-conforming operations already in their files, and delve into questions surrounding the amount of commercial land available.
“There’s a shortage of commercial and industrial property,” said Valeriote, noting that makes it hard to find a place to move to and even harder to buy as the shortage drives up land costs. “It’s a double edged sword. People push the boundaries of what operating a small business means, but it’s the economy that dictates that, too.” According to Fleming, there are a dozen other businesses with open bylaw files for Benvoulin alone, and while he can’t comment on specific cases, he feels there are likely plenty of others across the city. For his neighbours, losing Hampton Landscaping could mean a lot. The business brought an end to the pile of meaty carcasses attracting bears, not to mention a criminal element plaguing the area. Farmers like John Casorso across the way have offered their support for the business, even signed petitions with 70 names on paper and another 40 on Facebook groups, in an effort to sway city councillors. Still, someone must not have enjoyed Valeriote’s business presence. The impetus for this conflict came from a complaint over the Hampton sign that Valeriote tried to fight by pointing out he was on agricultural land where the sign bylaws did not apply. Many businesses start out conforming, operating out of a home, for example, but when the business succeeds and starts to thrive, it pushes the residents of the home out, Fleming said. Suddenly, a successful operation, with several employees, no longer falls within the rules on the city’s books, according to Fleming, and bylaw has to take action.
However, there are several members of council less willing to accept those guidelines. “(Businesses on farms) are part of the history of agricultural land,” Coun. André Blanleil said. He said that farmers have always operated side operations on their land because farming is a difficult business. Growing up in East Kelowna, farmers had everything from trucking operations to welding shops to offset their income, he recalled. Coun. Robert Hobson, however, has consistently warned there is more to this fight than meets the eye. Bring the sewer lines near farms and offshore development interest only gets one step closer to building condos in what’s arguably some of the province’s most fertile land, he has said. In the meantime, Valeriote has spent $100,000 doing renovations and cannot understand how he’s supposed to recover in the face of an unprecedented economic slump. “It’s a recession, so good luck trying to sell this place,” he said. The city’s timing could only have been worse if we were living in the Great Depression of the 1930s, he added.
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