A coalition of citizens and environmental and community groups is seeking to overturn a decision to remove 10 acres from the Agricultural Land Reserve to pave the way for a proposed $35-million shopping mall on the airport side of Sidney’s Beacon Avenue.
The request for reconsideration was filed by North Saanich resident Springfield Harrison and supported by 10 organizations, including the Sierra Club B.C., Peninsula EcoVision, North Saanich Residents Association, Save North Saanich, North Saanich Community Voices, North Saanich Food for the Future Society, St. John’s United Church Council, Keep North Saanich Rural and the ALR Watch Farmland Protection Coalition. Environmentalist Vicky Husband and more than a dozen other citizens also support the request.
The Agricultural Land Commission’s decision on Jan. 11 not only undermines food security, but has the potential for a conflict of interest because commission chairman Frank Leonard also sits on the board of the Victoria Airport Authority, the coalition said.
Leonard said Thursday that it’s already been reported that he had declared a conflict and excused himself from deliberations last May, noting that this application was dealt with by the Vancouver Island Panel headed by vice- chairwoman Jennifer Dyson.
The environmental group noted the 10 acres was actively farmed through 2015, and is classified as Class 2 soil — bettered only by Class 1 — which the commission describes as “land with good agricultural capability … capable of producing a wide range of crops.”
They want the land to be used for agriculture, not 10 buildings as part of the proposed Gateway shopping centre that would include restaurants and the town’s fourth full-size grocery store.
“The reasons given for exclusion — proximity to aviation and industry — are simply not valid,” the group said in a statement. “The property has a history of crop production, while viable farming goes on near industrial activity all over the world. Hundreds of acres of hay have been harvested beside the runways for years.”
Group spokeswoman Bernadette Greene said at least seven removals from the agricultural land reserve were reinstated last year and members are hoping if this decision is overturned, the Gateway shopping centre will be reassessed. Agricultural Land Commission CEO Kim Grout said in an email Thursday that she hasn’t had a chance to review the materials that were submitted and did not have enough information to comment further.
Greene said the application came together in the past couple of weeks, prompted by the issue of food security. Harrison has an office near airport lands, but the issue of producing food on farmland is “bigger than just one person,” she said.
“One has to wonder what the Airport Authority is doing in the first place, using federally owned farmland to compete with shopping in downtown Sidney,” Harrison said in a statement, adding there are many empty Sidney stores.
The airport has more than 300 acres of land not in the ALR available for farming and nearly 300 more acres in the ALR, of which a significant portion is farmed or naturally treed, said airport authority vice-president of operations James Bogusz. “This particular property that has been excluded is but a tiny portion of the available farm land at the airport and is located between industrial land, residential land, runway and a highway,” Bogusz said.
The authority went through the ALR exclusion process as “a good corporate citizen,” even though there was no obligation to do so, Bogusz said. He noted that the town of Sidney unanimously supported the decision to take the land out of the ALR and will make the decision on whether Gateway goes ahead via rezoning and amendment of the official community plan.
Developer Omicron has stated that the plan is to lease the site for 62 years for a mall anchored by a grocery store of between 30,000 and 50,000 square feet along with a major appliance and electronics store and other shops and professional services, with construction to start late this year.
Vice-president Peter Laughlin has said Omicron expects Gateway would complement Sidney stores by bringing sales to Sidney that currently go to downtown Victoria, Colwood and Langford.
