Saanich property owners seeking to exclude land from the Agricultural Land Reserve will now have to fork over nearly $4,000, after council opted to start charging to cover its costs of shepherding the applications through the process.
The Agricultural Land Commission altered the process for excluding land from the ALR in 2019, preventing private landowners from directly applying to have land excluded.
The change meant it was left to governments and First Nations to make such applications and Saanich has been acting on behalf of property owners since then.
The district has also been incurring the costs of the process, including a $750 application fee to the commission, $1,200 for public notices and to hold a public hearing, staff time, gathering technical information and legal fees.
Saanich will now charge property owners making an application $2,000 to cover the staff time and other costs, $1,200 to cover the public hearing and advertising, and $750 for the commission application fee.
Saanich Mayor Dean Murdock said it’s not meant to deter property owners seeking to have land excluded — it’s just to balance the books.
“Until now, we’ve had no fee to apply, which means it is getting covered out of general revenue — that’s property-tax revenue to pay for what are land-use applications,” he said.
“The new fee that’ll be attached appropriately reflects the cost in terms of staff time and the fee to apply to the Agricultural Land Commission in order to process these applications.”
The fee was approved Monday, the same night Saanich agreed to move forward a final ALR exclusion application under the old process. The district will hold a public hearing into the exclusion application for 4660 Elk Lake Dr., formerly Cannor Nursery and now Wildwood Outdoor Living Centre.
Murdock said it’s likely to be the last exclusion application that Saanich will pay for.
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