Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) directors gave their support in principle to the Agricultural Area Plan on Monday, but sent the document back for final edits to ensure the SCRD would not be on the hook for millions of dollars in project costs.
Speaking at a special planning and development committee meeting on Sept. 15, committee chair Frank Mauro said he tallied up the plan’s objectives and arrived at the figure of $3.2 million.
“Now I see that as being really, really low — it would only go up from here,” Mauro said. “In my mind, I can’t support that. I can’t adopt a plan that commits us to that type of thing.”
Launched two and a half years ago, the draft plan contains about 100 proposed actions with varying timelines, lead organizations and funding levels.
While not all directors agreed that the plan, as written, was committing the SCRD to funding or taking a lead role in the plan’s objectives, the committee voted to soften the wording and include a preamble specifically stating that the SCRD and member municipalities would not be responsible for the cost of actions outlined in the plan.
“We have to be clear that this is an overall plan for the area, but local government is not the driver,” Gibsons alternate director Lee Ann Johnson said.
An amended draft plan will be presented at the Oct. 16 planning and development committee meeting.
Looking at what actions could be taken on now by the SCRD, director of planning Steve Olmstead said one “logical, low-cost” project was helping to start up a farmers’ institute, which would address several initiatives listed in the plan, including marketing, branding and consumer awareness.
While the institute “should be led by industry,” Olmstead said, “we can play an important role in the process, helping them get started.”
That idea, however, did not fly with Elphinstone director Lorne Lewis, who said the farmers themselves should take the initiative to create such an organization.
“If the farmers don’t want to form a farmers’ institute, then I don’t see what role we have in that,” Lewis said, adding that the SCRD’s role should be limited to providing the group with “a meeting room or two to get the ball rolling.”
A second focus suggested by Olmstead was broadly accepted — for the SCRD to complete a review of its zoning regulations for agriculture.
Beyond that, directors agreed to have staff develop parameters for an ag plan implementation committee that will be considered during the budget process.
Commenting during an inquiry period after the votes, Dave Ryan, a member of the agricultural advisory committee who has been involved in the ag plan process from the outset, said he was “a bit disappointed” in the board’s direction.
“I think what I’m hearing is that this plan is not a strategic plan, it’s more of a data-collection, it’s more of a to-do list that … will be shuffled down to a steering committee that would look at all the action plans and then decide what responsibility does the SCRD have in any of these actions, if any,” Ryan said.
As elected officials, he said, “I believe you do have a responsibility when it comes to economics and supporting food, because food is a physiological need.”
In response, Mauro assured Ryan that the entire committee supports agriculture on the Coast and wants it to move forward, but said any funding commitment would have to be made at budget time “with far more details.”
As well as providing staff time, the SCRD funded the ag plan process by matching $45,000 in grants from the Investment Agriculture Foundation of B.C.
