The “reign of the Agricultural Land Commission” over land use decisions in the rural South Peace seemed to be the main concern of residents in those areas when providing their input on a draft Official Community Plan (OCP).

The Peace River Regional District hosted a meeting on Thursday evening at its Dawson Creek office to gather input on a draft South Peace Fringe Area OCP, a planning document that encompasses 95,900 hectares of the regional district surrounding the City of Dawson Creek and the Village of Pouce Coupe. However, most of the feedback from residents seemed to revolve around the barriers to development put on land within the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR).

“It’s blatantly obvious in the Alberta area there are farms that have an oilfield service company based right on the farm, and they’re coming across the border every morning, coming to work the jobs over here, because the handcuffs are on anybody who wants to set up an oilfield service company on rural property around here,” said Ivan Carlson, a resident of the Imperial Subdivision just outside of Dawson Creek.

“We’re not on an even playing field, and there’s so much economic loss to Alberta happening right here and right now that somebody better wake up and pay attention to that.”

“My view is that your planning process shouldn’t predicate any decisions whatsoever on what the Land Commission may or may not allow,” added Elvin Gowman, who also lives just outside of Dawson Creek.

“We recognize that we live under the reign of land commission and that we have to deal with it, but I think it’s foolhardy to try to put together a plan that anticipates what we think they may want or say, we should be putting together an Official Community Plan that reflects what we want.”

Gowman is also a consultant with Farmers’ Advocacy Office in Dawson Creek, a consultancy that assists rural landowners in their dealings and negotiations with the oil and gas industry, primarily. He noted that a lot of land outside of the Agricultural Land Reserve is still designated as agricultural land by the Peace River Regional District in the draft OCP.

“I don’t understand why you would do that, because that has a very negative impact for those landowners in dealing with the oil and gas industry in terms of their land values,” he said. “As soon as a landowner is affected by the oil and gas industry – by a wellsite or a pipeline – and they want to pay a pittance, the first thing they will do is look at the OCP and say, “oh, this is designated agriculture, it doesn’t matter if it’s out of the ALR, you can’t subdivide it, and you can’t do this and you can’t do that, so it’s worth $500 an acre.”

He suggested the designation should be as broad and innocuous as possible as to leave landowners is best position possible in regards to land development.

Felice Mazzoni, manager of planning services with Focus Corporation, a consultancy hired by the regional district to facilitate community consultation and help draft the OCP, agreed that the foremost role of the OCP is to try to reflect the interests of the community, but the plan has to be cognizant of the ALC.

“Although we have land use designations, the Land Commission has superceding authority on what land uses can happen in the ALR,” he said. “Policy in the OCP can influence those decisions with the Land Commission, but the ultimate decision lies with them.”

He added provincial law dictates that land within an OCP has to have a designation.

Mazzoni said, however, that the ALC has shown flexibility before, and provided an example of an Official Community Plan he helped to develop for Sooke, a community on Vancouver Island, that involved taking some land out of the ALR and adding other land into it, according to the wishes of the community.

“It would have been much more difficult for people to do one-offs,” he said. “When you have a plan in place that a community is behind, I think that’s a lot stronger going to the Land Commission.”

However, Ferrol Pavlis, who owns several properties within the Fringe Plan area, said she is not so confident in the ALC’s ability to be flexible, noting that when Dawson Creek’s OCP was developed, there were several parcels of land within the ALR identified for development that were ultimately rejected by the Commission.

Audrey Isaak, who actually lives just outside of the Fringe Area’s northern boundary, cautioned that there needs to be a balance within the OCP to protect agriculture. She said while she understands other landowners’ frustrations about not being able to take advantage of the economic opportunities afforded by the oil and gas industry, she said developing land without foresight will put farmers in a precarious situation.

“Who can afford to even keep their farms? It’s hard enough to afford your farm now as it is, but if you have to pay the price oil and gas can afford to pay for that land …the bottom line is, we still need food,” she said.

She also cited the pressures being put on local water sources by the industry as a concern.

“We’re trying to achieve that balance in this Official Community Plan,” replied Mazzoni, adding there are specific policies within the plan for water conservation, for example.

Gowman said the regional district should be looking just across the Alberta border to the rural plan recently drafted for the Saddle Hills County. He said there are policies in plan that might apply to the rural South Peace, including ones that have negative implications for this area.

“They were actually, in their plan, incorporating strategies, for example, around Baytree, just across the border, to draw businesses that want to be located rurally from here, our area, to Alberta, because we have this struggle with the Agricultural Land Commission,” he said.

He said with an aging rural population, and very few incentives offered for new people to move to rural communities, the regional district needs to decide if rural areas can support development, and then adopt polices to support population growth in those areas.

“We want to support that through policy in this Official Community Plan, so if we’re not covering that off, then we will take a look at it,” replied Mazzoli.

Gowman also noted the draft OCP includes no inventory of areas occupied by wellsites and facilities or intersected by pipelines.

“I don’t think you can do a Fringe Area plan where you have more intensive land use without taking that into account,” he said.

“The OCP suggests that work should get done,” replied Bruce Simard, general manager of development services for the regional district. “It’s a level of detail that this OCP, because of its comprehensive nature, doesn’t have any actions to do, but it certainly looks at it as something to follow up with.”

Landowners John and Mary Miller, who live just south of Rolla, asked how an OCP could be developed for the area without knowing the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s plan regarding the pending twinning of Highways 2 and 97 North.

Simard said the Ministry has not yet developed those plans in regards to the entire extent of that project, but the regional district will incorporate those plans into the OCP as they become known.

“We will stay in communication with the Ministry to see how it affects our plan,” he said. “The plan is not written in stone, and we want to see how this (highway expansion) affects it, and how we can adapt to it.”

He added the OCP will be formally reviewed every five years, though the regional district board could choose to revisit certain areas within the plan as major infrastructure is developed.

The draft OCP is still available for public comment for the rest of this month, before proceeding to the regional district board for two more readings. Landowners can email, phone in, mail, or bring their concerns in person to the regional district’s Dawson Creek office at 1981 Alaska Avenue during regular hours.

The Agricultural Land Commission could not be reached for comment.