SAVE SALMON ARM’S AGRICULTURAL LAND
The City of Salmon Arm is planning to use scarce public resources to facilitate the development of a new industrial park on land that is currently in the ALR. The only analysis ever done on the availability of industrial land in Salmon Arm was a consultant’s report commissioned by the city which determined that there is adequate available land for decades of growth. Anecdotally, there is very little industrial development taking place in Salmon Arm and there are industrial sites that have been for sale for months and some for years.
This initiative is being primarily driven by land speculators, and there seems to be some overlap with the individuals who were involved in driving the building of the underpass. Industrial land in the Lower Mainland has reached prices that are causing large distribution companies to look further afield for locations to set up distribution centres. Salmon Arm being located on the #1 and #97 could be an attractive location to establish a few of these facilities if the conditions were right. However, meeting these conditions would require a significant outlay of funds by the city as the current landowners would prefer not to have to fund this themselves. At an OCP stakeholder meeting held on Oct 9, 2024 the city proposed support for the idea of sharing the costs required to connect city services to the area. This as a problem for several reasons:
Number one is that would clearly be a transfer of wealth from the public purse to these landowners as the value of this land would immediately increase.
Secondly, the development of distribution centres is not a significant source of value creation or productivity for the local economy where the facility is located. The value created by this development flows to the property owners, developers and the operators, not typically the local workforce as the jobs are low paying and sometimes rely on temporary foreign labour. Therefore, investing public funds to bring this about will likely not generate a positive ROI, particularly when considering the total cost of ownership of the new infrastructure.
Why is this Important
The decisions we make concerning our agricultural land will impact current and future generations – once the land is gone, we cannot get it back. The “airport” ALR exclusion area was endorsed (for removal) by the ALC in 1988 but this should not be the basis for the City’s ongoing reasoning for exclusion zones as much has changed since 1988 including a growing awareness that farmland supports community resiliency by providing opportunities for local food production and processing, flood control and fire suppression, and when managed sustainably, supports biodiversity and ecosystem services like clean drinking water, carbon sequestration and wildlife habitat.
The removal of land from the ALR is particularly concerning in this case where all of the profit will flow to a few large investors, but the public will be left with the cost of maintaining the new industrial park infrastructure indefinitely. If the city is going to go through with this there should be real analysis and debate at the council level, this should not be led by city staff. If a new industrial park is truly needed in the future, let’s build it then but for now focus on real community driven priorities like fixing our failing recreation facilities and leave the 146 acres of land near the airport in the ALR.
Take action and sign this petition and/or contact city staff and mayor and council and let them know your concerns. This petition will be sent to the City of Salmon Arm and the Agricultural Land Commission.
CA
