The mayor of Kamloops has some concerns with provincial government changes to legislation governing the Agricultural Land Reserve.
Ken Christian says while the issue has yet to come up at Council, some of the changes have him worried.
“I think that what they are trying to do is avoid going through a lengthly ALR process only to find that the subdivision that the person was proposing was not going to get approved by local government,” he said. “It is kind of a chicken and egg situation.”
“I will tell you this the City of Kamloops does not have agrologists on staff and we do not have the capacity to assess arable land and agricultural potential.”
Christian says pre-screening land to see if it is good for agricultural purposes is not local government’s job.
He says what remains to be seen is how council handles any ALR exclusion applications raising the possibility they might just send them all the ALC and be done with it.