Representatives from Merritt are sponsoring a couple of resolutions at the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in Vancouver this week, which could help eliminate a hurdle in the Gateway 286 project.
“We’re looking up at the [Gateway] 286 project, and there’s land up there that we want to use that is still governed by the ALR [Agricultural Land Reserve],” Coun. Mike Goetz said.
It is also more commonly referred to as the ALC (Agricultural Land Commission) and its goal is to ensure agricultural land is maintained for agricultural purposes, he said.
The resolution would call on the provincial government to establish a process to recognize that drawbacks to local governments outweigh the potential benefits of retaining certain lands deemed unsuitable to reserve for agriculture.
The resolution involves the Agricultural Land Commission Act and Agricultural Land Reserve Regulations and aims to change the regulations pertaining to these lands.
Another Merritt-sponsored resolution pertaining to ALC lands would simplify the process and time it takes to gain approval and remove those lands from the ALC.
Goetz said their resolution would make the acquisition of agricultural lands for non-agricultural purposes easier.
Both Merritt-sponsored resolutions will be voted on today.
He said the land involved in the Gateway 286 project is non-farmable.
“There really is no agricultural concern up there because nothing grows up there except tumbleweed,” Goetz said, adding in all his years in Merritt he’s never seen anything but weeds growing there.
Goetz said due to the large number of resolutions, multiple resolutions will often be rolled into one “block” and voted on together.
Given the non-contentious nature of their resolution, Goetz said he can’t see it failing to pass.
“And it’s not just Gateway 286. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to make that process more available and easier for everybody in the province and that’s why we brought it forward,” Goetz said.
Merritt Mayor Susan Roline said this resolution will also help future growth with other lands that fit this description.
Goetz and Roline said they’ve received a lot of support on the resolution from other communities that have run into these types of situations.
“It’s not hard to figure out that this kind of thing holds communities back for years,” Goetz said.
A simpler application process would cut down on the time it takes to go through a process to get the land off the ALC, which can take years, Goetz said.
Though this resolution won’t solve all the problems associated with Gateway 286, it will knock down at least one hurdle in Merritt.
“You get a process where you say ‘OK, this is unusable land, we’ll just automatically take it out of ALR and it becomes Crown land, which is much easier to move into a project than ALR land,’” Goetz said.
Once a resolution is passed, the provincial government may look into the matter.
“If they’re passed by UBCM or endorsed by UBCM, they all go to the province and the province has to decide what they’re going to do with them, and they may do nothing with them. But most of the time they act on them and we get a report usually around Christmas, maybe January, about what went [and] what didn’t go,” Goetz said.
When dealing with these resolutions, it’s key to involve the community’s MLA and get updates on the status of the resolution with the government, Goetz said.
About 155 resolutions were brought to UBCM by various communities in B.C., the lowest amount since 2001, according to a report from the 2013 resolutions committee.
