OSOYOOS TIMES-November 10, 2010

By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times

The Agricultural Land Commission has approved the Town of Osoyoos’s application to release 16 hectares of land in the Southeast Meadowlark area in west Osoyoos from the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve.
The area is bounded by 74th Avenue to the north, Hwy. 97 to the east, 62nd Avenue to the south and Meadowlark Drive to the west.
The commission made its decision to approve the release in September and the Town was informed on Oct. 14.
The Town unveiled an area plan for the Southeast Meadowlark area in February which sets out guidelines for development in the area for the next 10 years.
The plan was adopted by council in April and incorporated into the Town’s Official Community Plan (OCP).
Through the area plan, the Town will be able to meet the community’s medium-density and affordable housing needs.
The plan states that 15 per cent of any housing built in the area must be affordable to households bringing in moderate incomes that cannot purchase a home or pay expensive rental rates.
Alain Cunningham, the Town’s planning and development director, said in a media release that once the area is fully developed, it could contain up to 270 medium-density residences, 40 of which would be deemed as affordable housing.
He added that the residential housing that could be built in the area may include walk-up apartments, row housing and narrow-frontage single-family and duplex homes.
The commission’s ruling will also allow the Town to go ahead with the construction of a new fire hall on a 2.3-hectare parcel of land west of Hwy. 97 and south of 74th Avenue known as the Richter property that was purchased by the Town in 2009.
The Town has stated that the site is large enough to accommodate a modern eight-bay fire hall that could be extended out to 12 bays in the future if needed.
The rest of the 2.3-hectare property will be offered up for sale to a residential developer, the media release states, as long as the Town receives an “acceptable return” on the property and 15 per cent of the development is made up of affordable housing.
There are a few conditions for the release of the land in the Meadowlark area, however.
Properties in the area will remain zoned as Agricultual and will stay in the reserve until Osoyoos council approves property rezoning applications and the commission approves the removal of the property from the reserve.
“Any applications for rezoning or development must show how the property will be developed in accordance with the (Southeast Meadowlark) area plan, and must agree to include affordable housing,” the Town’s media release states. “After council approves any rezoning for properties in the area the commission will only release the property from the ALR following their review of the consistency of the proposed development against key policies of the area plan.”
The commission also wanted the Town to delete several local properties within the reserve from its OCP that had been designated as growth areas.
These properties include the Wish property in east Osoyoos and the Laranjo property west of the intersection of highways 3 and 97.
Any development in the Meadowlark area will also have to follow guidelines laid out in the area plan including housing densities of 30 units per hectare, the establishment of 30-metre setbacks of residential structures on properties close to land that is still within the ALR, specifically to the west of the Meadowlark area, and appropriate buffering and fencing measures on lands in the area released from the reserve.
According to its written decision on the Town’s application, the commission agreed to release the land because it found that the Southeast Meadowlark area “is not suitable for agricultural use in the long term due to fragmentation and existing non-farm uses.”
In its assessment of the agricultural suitability of the area in question, the commission found that “the presence of the kettle pond, and the existing small lot subdivision and existing non-farm uses (such as the Osoyoos Baptist Church) made this area unsuitable in the long term.”
The commission ultimately determined that the Town’s plans for the area will not have a negative effect on agriculture “if appropriate mitigation measures are implemented by the Town through the zoning and development permit process.”
It also concluded that “the exclusion and urbanization of this area will reduce pressure on the ALR in other parts of the community.
“In addition, if the urban development is buffered on the westerly boundary by road right of way, fences and vegetative screen, then the Commission believes that the adjoining cultivated land will continue to be used for agriculture.”
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