Pellet Plant on the Drawing Board for Tolko Lavington

As in many things in our community, everything hinges on whether the Agricultural Land Commission will allow an additional ~2 acres at Tolko's Lavington facility as Non-Farm Use on their 7 acre parcel.  Five acres of Tolko's Lavington property already has permission for non-farm use.

IF--and it's always a BIG if--the ALC allows the application, a pellet plant is in the works.

Historically unswayed by the prospect of nearly 30 full-time new jobs at the plant and 15 full-time trucking jobs, the ALC will hear Tolko has sweetened the offer by proposing that 35.8 acres of vacant land they own in Spallumcheen go into the Agricultural Land Reserve. 

New Jobs--or new farming, for that matter--is never "a given" with the ALC.

Reminds me of when our 15.11 acre property was an apple orchard.
Without digging through files to reacquaint myself with the year, we wanted to build a second house here for my parents.
Since a sliver of land all along our road frontage on Buchanan Road was in the Agricultural Land Reserve (but the other 96 per cent) was not, we had to apply to the ALC for subdivision.
For various reasons, we chose not to apply for the only other acceptable route--Homesite Severance--to achieve that.

And we were advised to "sweeten the deal" by planting more apple trees than we were removing.
Made sense.

We would remove 40 or 50 apple trees to build my parent's house (they liked the idea of having orchard around them on three sides), and plant almost 100 new trees on then-bare land near the edge of the existing orchard.
To make a long story short, the ALC said "no" to us.
Parents ended up buying ~7 acres on Silver Star, so we relegated to the woodstove the 40 pages of paperwork accumulated in six months.

I hope the ALC says "yes" to Tolko's plan.
So does Coldstream mayor Jim Garlick, acting as Tolko's acting communications manager, nudging aside Tolko's actual acting communications manager Janice Lockyer.

The prospect of new permanent full-time jobs is the second good news in Coldstream in a while.
A long while.
The first was the prospect of amalgamating two mayors/councils and three administrations (including the regional district) with the City of Vernon, considering there are only about 58,000 people residing in the area.

It's said that good things come in threes.

"Two down, one to go," says Kia. 

Forgetting for a moment that large industry province-wide is seeking relief from onerous property tax rates, Coldstream's mayor sees sugar plums for the municipality's coffers. 

Ed Hanoski, councillor Par Excellence

It's obvious that Ed Hanoski doesn't live in the District of Coldstream.

And that he hasn't been poisoned by toeing the provincial line from the Agricultural Land Commission, whose unparalleled joy at Coldstream's promotion--indeed attempted forcing--of RU10, RU30 rezoning as it relates to secondary structures was almost audible.

A councillor in the district of Spallumcheen, Mr. Hanoski is unique among elected officials, certainly among those in Coldstream.
He doesn't seek to gain points with senior bureaucrats in Victoria.
He actually represents his constituents.

During his bid for councillor, he actually banged on doors and asked people what they wanted.  And it sounds as though he didn't simply bang on the doors of leftists and NIMBYists. 

Agricultural Land Reserve rules state a secondary suite is only allowed inside an existing dwelling, or by placement of a mobile/manufactured home on the property.

That regulation is, naturally, under the guise of keeping as much arable land available for farming.
But a guise--a ruse--it is.
Because it's all about conformity, all about control.  

Ed's discussions with property owners convinced him of what he already knew...that people want the ability to have aging parents (the previous generation who farmed) to be able to live on the property where they can be cared for by family members, but that each of the two generations would be able to maintain a modicum of privacy and comfort.

To his credit, the rest of Spallumcheen council unanimously supported Mr. Hanoski's view.  Their recommendation will form a resolution to this year's Southern Interior Local Government Association. 

He's made other good recommendations too.

Good luck with your proposed resolution, Mr. Hanoski.

"Just don't sit beside Maria Besso at the convention," warns Kia.

Coldstream Councillor Maria Besso has never farmed acreage but believes she knows infinitely more than those who currently do, or did farm acreage.

Maria Besso would suggest Spallumcheen farmers open a teahouse...

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."  W.Churchill