Land Use Planning
BC’s grasslands are disappearing at an alarming rate. Development pressure on remaining natural ecosystems is intense and increasing. The majority of land use decisions in areas of human settlement are made at the local government level, and local governments have been empowered in recent years to enact legislation to protect sensitive ecosystems within their jurisdictions. However, local governments are struggling to find a balance between managing growth and protecting natural values. Official Community Plans, growth strategies, and associated bylaws often do not effectively utilized the full suite of existing legislative tools to ensure protection of remaining natural ecosystems. Various models, tools and collaborative strategies need to be available to the land use planners to ensure that optimum use is made of existing legislation and incentives to promote grassland conservation.
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Planning for Change Initiative
The Green Infrastructure Model
Most municipal and regional governments acknowledge the need for strategic, landscape-level land use planning tools. A new look at conservation planning tools includes The Green Infrastructure Model Bylaws Package, developed by the multi-agency Wetland Stewardship Partnership and University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre Clinic. This model provides a set of local government bylaws that can provide comprehensive protection for grasslands, wetlands and other sensitive ecosystems. It provides integrated bylaw provisions that maintain the green infrastructure and protect ecologically sensitive areas. The model includes provisions for regional growth strategies, official community plans, development permit areas, zoning, tax exemptions, environmental assessment, storm water management and other regulatory tools.
Each local government can tailor the wording provided in the Model Bylaws Package to its own specific needs. The key benefit of the Model Bylaws Package is its integrated approach. For more informaitn about the package, click here.
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Agricultural Land Reserve
There are growing concerns in BC that the Agricultural Land Reserve has gone from a protector of agriculture for future generations to a source of relatively cheap land for municipalities seeking immediate revenue and developers seeking a profit.
Introduced by Dave Barrett’s NDP government in 1973 as a way to arrest the loss of farmland, the Land Reserve is coming under increasing public scrutiny as it attempts to balance the opposing forces of preservation versus development around the province. BC Agriculture Council’s official position is that the land reserve provides food security, helps the environment, and provides economic benefit. The Council also cautions that not all land in the reserve is economic to farm, and emphasizes there is no point protecting the land unless you protect the farmer’s ability to make a living.
The GCC has been collaborating with several conservation organizations, land trusts, and the Agricultural Land Commission to streamline guidelines for developing conservation covenants on ranchlands. The key issue for many conservation groups is the establishment of covenants on ranchlands that protect native forage, agricultural values and ecological values in perpetuity, thereby protecting agricultural lands and ecological values from fragmentation and development. To learn more, visit the ALC website at www.alc.gov.bc.ca
Smart Growth
Smart Growth BC is a provincial non-governmental organization devoted to fiscally, socially and environmentally responsible land use and development. Working with community groups, business, municipalities and the public, they advocate for the creation of more livable communities in BC. Smart Growth BC was created as a joint project of the University of Victoria Eco-Research Chair of Environmental Law and Policy and the West Cost Environmental Law Association. The Smart Growth project aims to foster a growing citizen movement addressing growth and urban sprawl issues around the province, and to provide sound alternative policy solutions to these issues. Smart Growth BC was incorporated as an independent non-profit society in December 1999, and received federal charitable status in January 2002. Go to www.smartgrowth.org to learn more.
Priority Grassland Initiative
Over the last year the GCC has made great strides in developing an analytical and scientific assessment of grasslands in the province. This project is known as the Priority Grassland Initiative. The main objective of the initiative has been to develop a GIS analysis and techniques to identify priority grassland for conservation and stewardship, as well as extension of this information to appropriate land use planners. For more information on the Priority Grassland Initiative, click here.
The Planning for Change Initiative aims to provide municipal, regional, provincial and First Nations’ governments with the tools and information to develop a strategy for preventing the fragmentation and development of priority grasslands within their boundaries. Throughout 2007, the GCC will be holding one day solution oriented workshops in several locations to provide municipal and regional planning staff with priority grassland mapping tools, conservation targets and planning tools available to them and to set the scene for discussion, solutions and relationship building between the agencies and the GCC. For more information on the Planning for Change Initiative, click here.
To find out more about land use in BC, click on the links below:
Preserving Working Ranches
Wildlife Protection
Recreational Practices
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