A small step toward the Sandown proposal was taken Monday night.
North Saanich’s committee of the whole voted unanimously to approve a $9,000 environmental investigation on the property and asked staff to have a formal appraisal on the property.
However, a 4-3 vote held staff back from drafting a memorandum of understanding with the Agricultural Land Commission on the use of the property.
“It’s not quite as easy and clean a deal as people think it is,” Coun. Craig Mearns said, noting the real estate climate for agricultural land is cool and the municipality might have troubles selling or leasing the parcel. Mearns and councillors Ted Daly, Dunstan Browne and Conny McBride voted against signing the MOU. Mayor Alice Finall, Coun. Celia Stock and Coun. Elsie McMurphy voted in favour.
North Saanich worked with the owner of the former Sandown race track, Bill Randall, to draw up a deal that would give Randall 12 acres of land near McDonald Park Road to develop into commercial property by removing it from the Agricultural Land Reserve. In return, he will donate the rest of the 83-acre parcel to the municipality for agricultural use. The district would also put 12 acres of its own land back into the ALR.
Mearns, Daly, Browne and McBride voted at the Dec. 12 meeting to halt all advancements until staff could bring more information about the costs associated with the land deal.
On Monday, chief administrative officer Rob Buchan showed a report that suggested fixes to the land, to make it farmable, might cost $693,000, including a sizeable buffer.
Browne had his doubts about the costs.
“When we started off this thing, we were around $400,000. Now we’re close to $700,000,” he said.
Mearns added it could be difficult to sell the land, which might only be worth $2 million to $3 million when covenants are locked onto its uses. But Ed Johnson from the Farmlands Trust Society offered at the meeting for his organization to farm and manage the land as-is, at no cost to the municipality.
Stock said the proposal should move ahead.
“I don’t think the cost to taxpayers will be more than what the opportunity is,” Stock said, adding the draft MOU could have been altered before finalization, if it was approved.
The MOU would be altered frequently before it was signed, ALC executive director Colin Fry said, not speaking specifically about Sandown.
“It’s back and forth and quite frankly, I think you’d come out with quite a number of drafts before you signed anything,” he told the Peninsula News Review. “I would think that … at the end of the day the council will have to internally address the issues, flesh out their proposal, then provide it to the commission for review.”
Seven young farmers from Victoria spoke at the meeting, saying the Peninsula needs quality land for food production and farming education.
editor@peninsulanewsreview.com
By the numbers
Costs involved to prepare the 83 acre ALR parcel for farming
Structure demolition $395,000
Soil remediation $188,000
Drainage $100,000
Fencing, signage $63,000
Agrology $27,000
Covenants $11,000
Environmental assessment $9,000
Total $793,000
Contribution from developer $100,000
Net cost to North Saanich $693,000