BCBusiness

Head count of animals in Metro Vancouver's ALR Lands (2011) 4.46 million chickens + hens 1,524 pigs 373,273 turkeys 5,951 horses 1,737 goats 20 BCBusiness october 2015 "This is one of the biggest agricultural issues facing the province," says Steves, 79. "It de˜nitely sets a precedent—this was a prime dairy farm and it's being allowed to deteriorate." For Steves and others, the ˜ght over Southlands is about much more than several hun- dred acres of subpar farmland: it's about the fate of agriculture in the region. Of the ˜ve per cent of land in B.C. that is arable, only 1.1 per cent is considered prime class 1 or 2 alluvial soil—and that's almost entirely found in the Fraser Delta. The region still produces 60 per cent of the meat and dairy we consume in B.C., along with 43 per cent of our fruits and vegetables. And in the age of climate change, the notion of food security becomes critical, especially as Califor- nia's agricultural lands go into decline. "If the Fraser Valley goes away," says Steves, "there's no next valley." Still, the success of the ALR in providing food security is somewhat mixed. In the Lower Mainland, only half of ALR land is actually farmed. Another quarter is fallow and another quarter can't be farmed at all: it's parkland or golf courses, or the topography is unsuitable for agriculture. Furthermore, there is no requirement in the ALR statutes to actually farm—only that ALR-protected land can't be used for non-farm uses. Shortly after the B.C. Liber- als were re-elected in 2013, the minister responsible for core review, Bill Bennett, called for an overhaul of the ALR and the independent commission that governs it, the Agricultural Land Commission. After three months of consultations, the government rolled out Bill 24, which lengthened the list of non-farming activities that landowners can pursue without going to the commission and gave six new regional panels the power to include "economic L ululemon's billionaire founder Chip Wilson is wearing ip-ops to the glamour-packed launch party of Kit and Ace's new ag- ship clothing store in Kitsilano. His 26-year-old son, JJ, is there in a black tank top, while Shan- non Wilson—Chip's wife, JJ's stepmom—is wearing a striped T-shirt. A dress-down a£air? Per- haps. But at $118 for JJ's "Drake Tank" (made with interlaced silk, wool and cashmere) and $78 for Shannon's "Kaye Crew," looking this e£ortlessly sharp doesn't come cheap. Kit and Ace (named after the company's "ideal" customers) is a year old now and just exiting what JJ—the company's chief brand o§cer (Shannon serves as creative director)—describes as the "beta" stage. The term is borrowed from Silicon Valley, whose culture Kit and Ace is channelling both in terms of target market and expansion strate¨y. Already, the company employs 600 people (mostly full-time at the Vancouver HQ) with plans to double its current North American presence to 50 stores by mid-2016—and turn a pro˜t by 2018. Normally, clothing retail- ers build brand recognition then scale accordingly—not the other way around. Analyst David Ian Gray of Vancouver- based DIG360 Consulting says he's never seen anything like it. "I imagine there are a lot of consultants who may think this is crazy. We're used to that kind of dialogue when we talk about Off and Running backed by the bank of chip wilson, retailer kit and ace is scaling like a startup in the tech sector–and targeting that crowd too by Trevor Melanson R e t a i l criteria" in their assessments. The bill divided B.C.'s ALR land in two. The ˜rst zone—the South Coast, part of the Okanagan and Vancouver Island—were exempt from many of the changes, as it was deemed an area with "more development and population pressures." The second zone— including the Cariboo, the Koote- nays and Peace River Valley—was not exempt. While critics like Steves see the changes as an e£ective death sentence for farmland, especially outside the Lower Mainland, others argue they're long over- due—and one way to inject a bit of a£ordability into B.C.'s una£ord- able housing market. "We're not ˜lling in the water, we're not cutting down the mountains, so the ALR is the biggest thing that can change," says Tsur Sommer- ville, associate professor at UBC's Sauder School of Business, who has studied the impact of the ALR on land values in the Lower Mainland. In his 2010 study, Som- merville proposed that removing all restrictions on the develop- ment of Lower Mainland farm- land would reduce land values by 15 to 20 per cent. "Getting rid of the ALR won't make the region a£ordable, but it would certainly address single-family home price pressures in the Fraser Valley." But it's a tradeo£ Lower Mainlanders seem unwilling to make. In a 2014 survey by the Real Estate Foundation of B.C., 95 per cent of respondents sup- ported the ALR; 71 per cent said laws protecting the ALR should be strengthened or maintained. For Sean Hodgins, however— who grew up in Delta and whose father, George, acquired the land nearly a quarter-century ago—it's not an either-or proposi- tion. He says we should preserve farmland—but also be responsive to housing needs: "The ALR is a blunt force instrument, which has its place. But it doesn't put a ˜ne grain to how it impacts the local community." What's in Metro VancouVer's aLr? Crops in Metro Vancou- ver's ALR lands by acre under production (2011) 12,180 acres of blueberries 5,901 acres of cranberries 5,016 acres of potatoes 1,191 acres of green and wax beans source: Metro vaNcouver ceNsus of agriculture bulletiN

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