by SUSAN MANN
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture is considering launching an Ontario Municipal Board appeal of a Huron County Council Committee of the Whole severance decision that created a non-farm rural residential lot in a prime agricultural area.
The request of Robert Vodden and Joanne Palmer to sever about 1.47 acres from the corner of a farm parcel on Concession 3 in East Ward (Hullett) in Central Huron was given provisional consent subject to seven conditions by the committee on May 11. Some of the conditions include matters dealing with numbering and addressing the property for 911 purposes, and the need for a survey and rezoning.
Neil Currie, federation general manager, says the decision allowing creation of the lot is contrary to the Provincial Policy Statement, “which we agreed with in terms of use of agricultural lands.”
The federation is looking at “what’s required for the appeal right now,” Currie says. The deadline for filing an Ontario Municipal Board appeal is June 6.
Peter Jeffery, federation senior farm policy researcher, says the federation’s land use policy statement has an opposition to residential development in prime agricultural areas because of impacts on surrounding agricultural uses. “There would be potential impacts on establishing or expanding livestock facilities on the farms adjacent to the residential lot because the minimum distance separation formulas would be applied.”
Depending on the distance between the house on the lot and the barn or manure storage on adjacent farms, there could be constraints or restrictions on livestock use of the adjacent properties, he says.
Huron County planner Susanna Reid says the county’s planning department recommended the application be denied because it doesn’t conform to the Provincial Policy Statement, the county’s Official Plan or the Central Huron Official Plan. None of these planning documents permit the creation of a non-farm residential lot, she says. Central Huron Council recommended the application be approved with conditions.
Huron County Council committee of the whole chair Bill Dowson, also the Mayor of Bluewater, says the provincial statement, the official plans and the planning department’s recommendations are all guidelines for councilors to follow. But in the end sometimes it makes sense to make decisions that don’t follow staff recommendations.
Dowson says this matter has been discussed since last September. “If we don’t take a look at our rural areas and we just turn everything down and leave it strictly as what it could turn into we are going to turn our community into just industrial type farming with no rural connection.”
Dowson says he strongly supports severances with the understanding both farmers and rural residents have to work together and be respectful of each other if they’re going to save rural life. “If we don’t protect our rural areas and get some people living on the concessions and the side roads, we will have no need to keep the roads up because there won’t a good enough tax base. We won’t have a tax base.”
It says on the provincial agriculture ministry’s website the minimum distance separation (MDS) formulae is a land use planning tool used to determine a recommended separation distance between a livestock barn or manure storage and another land use. MDS doesn’t account for other nuisances, such as noise or dust.
The 2005 Provincial Policy Statement requires new land uses in rural and prime agricultural areas, including the creation of lots and new or expanding livestock facilities, to comply with the MDS formulae.
Currie says municipalities’ decisions have to be consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement and “we see this as inconsistent and that would be the nature of our appeal.”
Reid says there weren’t any objections to the severance application either from surrounding landowners or anyone else. Since the county’s committee of the whole made its decision approving the severance, Dowson says he hasn’t heard from anyone objecting to its decision.
About the MDS, Reid says the vacant lot itself doesn’t create an MDS buffer but if there was a house built on the lot it would. Reid says there are plans to build a house on the lot.
In a 2010 Huron County planning department study requested by two councilors, planners concluded the number of possible rural residential lots in Huron County is 9,500. The study was undertaken to assess the number and effect of rural severances similar to the lot requested in the Vodden/Palmer application.
“On an individual basis this type of development may seem harmless but as a policy permitting scattered rural residential lots across the county the ramifications are significant,” it says in the study.
A common belief is any increase in assessment will lower overall taxes. That may be true in specific circumstances and for specific land uses but “it does not necessarily hold true for scattered residential development,” the study adds.
The study concluded that the number of non-farm residential lots that could be created in the agricultural area is significant “with respect to sheer numbers, effects on agricultural flexibility and competition for settlement area lots.”
In addition, the disadvantages of scattered residential development are greater than the advantages. “This finding is consistent with the rationale of Huron County’s 40 years of policy protecting agriculture and directing development to settlement areas,” it says in the study. “Any severance that opens the door to this type of development should not be approved.” BF
Comments
Before the OFA wades into the fray, they may want to consult with the Huron County Federation of Agricultre to see if the local Federation is as opposed to this severance as the OFA appears to be.
The future of our local hospitals, and our local schools, both of which are used by farm families, may be more dependent on the approval of this type of severance, than not.
What's the sense of preserving farm land, if the farmer has no local hospital, and/or his children have no local school, solely because we have denied people the ability to create housing units outside metropolitan areas?
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Agreed.
The province has been touting a "knowledge based" society since they came in power. The province gave us a insurance plan under the pretense of a "support" program - RMP. The program insures we pay twice but collect maybe once if our income falls too low.
Ontario does not support local farmers they just want "cheaper" food. Chinese farmers can provide that at a much lower cost. That means our province does not support agriculture anymore so why is the OFA trying to keep something no one really wants?
A residential lot will bring in more income to the local community than a farm. More tax base. More people to support the shops, hospitals, libraries and businesses. Farms don't do that anymore. Farms have become a financial burden on society.
Time marches on and the OFA can't see that they have no clothes on.
I find it interesting that you would assert that the province or your GFO doesn't care about farmers...
- 75% off your propery tax for productive land compared to a home to live in... or farm buildings that generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for a pitance in property tax.. that rationally makes sense in what world? Maybe if farmers paid a bit more - even moving from 75% off to 50% off - to genuinely support their community, then the severance issue would go away.
- HST off your truck purchases... which gets funnelled into extras - the budget doesn't change, but the bells and whistles do... the quality of vehicle in the country for a middle-class farmers is much higher than that of the average urbanite
- billions of dollars in subsidies (of supply managed arrangements) each year to keep structurally unsound business to stay a float... when many don't ever pay taxes in the first place...
- the list goes on...
It must be rough to live in a big house in the country while the urban population keeps your dream alive through their income and property taxes.
Farmers are consistently ungrateful whiners, oblivious to the many advantages they take for granted.
My eyes are wide open and it is clear that you have been brainwashed to believe farmers always receive special benefits.
-Farmers don;t get 75% off their municipal taxes. Farm land is taxed at a lower rate for obvious reasons. Most farmlands do not use services such as golf courses, malls, sewers, garbage pickup, libraries, schools, medical centres, nursing care, airports, etc. Those services are are used by people and farmers pay the same rate of taxes on their home lots as does everyone else.
-HST off some purchases? Really? The HST on farm trucks used solely farm use is 100% rebatable just like trucks used for other legitimate businesses.
-billions in subsidies? Really again? FCC (farm credit corporation) gives out millions of $$$ each year to communities for soccer fields, community centers, hospitals, sport complexes, lodges, playground equipment, medical research, (list too long) in the guise of "corporate responsibility) through the AgriSpirit Fund. I don't see Canada Post handing out money but its Agriculturally related budgeted money so people think it goes to farmers. Ontario farmers through Agricorp loans to the provinces hundreds of millions of $$$. The U of G is a really big item in OMFRA budget. Money to support Asian investments in green technology is a massive item under agriculture items. RMP is a advance that is clawed back by the fees support Queens Park's budget. What portion of money ACTUALLY received by individual farmers?
And list goes on.
If the money is so easy to get just to "farm" then why are there only 30,000 farmers left in the province down from 280,000 in 1967?
You know, if you ate today, I can bet that a farmer produced your food, and it was not by your sweat. It obvious you take farmers for granted. You should be protecting farmers not bashing then because you just might them some day.
My first reaction to these comments is defensive, but on second thought there are some good points here.
I think property taxes are lower for farm land vs. homes because fewer services are required. However absentee landowners contribute very little if anything to my community. The ridiculous prices being paid for land (by farmers and investors) will increase the taxes just by the increased assesment value, but that's not enough. I would be in favour of paying a higher percent of taxes on my land. It would benefit my community and force others to carry their share.
The HST gets returned to any business that purchases a truck (farmer or not), but there are some really expensive trucks on farms that have nothing to do with earning income. Maybe these luxury trucks should not get the HST back.
I was talking to one of my suppliers this week. He mentioned how farmers tend to run to gevernment for help whenever things get tough. His business doesn't get that help. He's right and that's part of the reason I'm against RMP....that and the fact it's a lousy program.
Yes farmers are generally ungrateful whiners and some of the most recent events make me ashamed to admit I'm a farmer.
It so easy to pick on minority groups. The public says much the same about people on welfare. Beer and popcorn, but with farmers its fancy trucks. None of those things really matter.
Rural communities are dying for a variety of reasons. Agriculture does not support families the same way it did in previous decades. Less human labor is required for agriculture each year with advanced technology. Communication and marketing of products (ie smart phones) is changing the way all businesses are done. With less labor requirements, family members are pushed into non-farm jobs. Rural areas have less commercial and industrial jobs so employment if gravitate towards the urban areas. When the people gravitate towards the urban areas for jobs, services follow the people. Its a vicious cycle and jobs, or lack of, is at the heart of the matter. Its not just farmers doing this, bedroom communities are the norm now. Who knows their neighbors anymore?
Commercial activities such as grocery stores, pharmacies, supply chains, etc, are on razor thin margins and quantity of sales takes precedent on the quality of items. Rural areas don't have population densities to support the evolving marketing template.
Rural areas have significant detrimental issues and demonizing one class of people, the farmers, is not helpful in the least.
When the foundation of this province show significant cracks, society at large will be impacted. The question will be, how will we adapt?
OFA’s objection to removing land from production for residential lot purposes is rather hypocritical if your compare it to other OFA policies that allow land to be removed for expensive inefficient noisy Industrial Wind Turbines. For example, OFA is not objecting to removing approx. 1.5 acres of roads and associated land fragmentation per Industrial Wind Turbine (IWT), yet removing 1 ac. for a residence is not acceptable.
Furthermore, both County Council and OFA need not worry about many residential house severance applications, if they both continue to allow noisy IWT’s to effectively sterilize existing plus potential new residential lots and possible barn building sites, notwithstanding the associated residential devaluation of overall tax base that will happen in the midst of a forest of thousands of noise polluting IWT’s in Ontario.
My guess you will see more of this happening in other municipalities as well. As the development of wind turbines and solar developments continue, property values will drop. Therefore property tax revenues will drop. The municipalities will need to maintain and even increase their revenues year over year, as they need $$$$ to actually run the towns and counties. One way to do this is to allow building lots for new homes.
No one wants to see their property taxes go up. Very unpopular for County Councile to increase the rates, so one way to solve the problem is to allow severances.
Those who got the nerve to whine about farmers whining are just a bunch of babies. There,s a lot of hard work for a lot of the farmers out there to make some money. You do every thing right then there is flood ,drought,insect, weeds and etc. at the end of season you end up with very little or nothing in your pockets. The companies that you bought all the products from they got their money.If you are lucky and got a good crop there,s alot of people in the end made alot of money off all the food the farmers that took a big risk to produce.The farmer in one area may have a bad crop so what, the companies get the food from someware else in the world and some people think they can do without the farms in their area. If everybody thinks like that tere would be no farmers or food left in the world, so STOP WHINING ABOUT FARMERS>
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