Develop the ALR?

[featfan]

Why do we need to get bigger?

[AlienSoldier]

Why do we need to get bigger?

Its not a need, its whats happening (from Chain, India, Lower Mainland, Alberta, Other parts of BC and Canada). People are moving to Kelowna as amenities move here. The University, Hospital, Airport, malls and stores are driving growth for people to come to Kelowna and in-return people need to live somewhere.

Either we can live with higher and higher costs of housing because we are restricting land. Along with higher costs of services because when you live further and further apart your cost of housing (driving, getting sewers out to new subdivisions, electricity out to subdivisions, policing, fire, ambulance, etc).

Kelowna is a City, its not a town any more and the mentality needs to change, otherwise 10 years from now all of the current issues will be much worse.

[alanjh595]

I wonder if there is some middle ground to have housing on ALR land? Keep a portion of productive land for farming, and have a agriculture based housing development around it. Or a housing development with gardens and fruit trees as a central theme. This fits with the idea of ensuring food sustainability.

SO...to satisfy your requirements......

A huosing, apartment complex to be built on agricultural land, all they have to do is include communal gardens?

[featfan]

Its not a need, its whats happening (from Chain, India, Lower Mainland, Alberta, Other parts of BC and Canada). People are moving to Kelowna as amenities move here. The University, Hospital, Airport, malls and stores are driving growth for people to come to Kelowna and in-return people need to live somewhere.

Either we can live with higher and higher costs of housing because we are restricting land. Along with higher costs of services because when you live further and further apart your cost of housing (driving, getting sewers out to new subdivisions, electricity out to subdivisions, policing, fire, ambulance, etc).

Kelowna is a City, its not a town any more and the mentality needs to change, otherwise 10 years from now all of the current issues will be much worse.

Thanks for not slamming my question.
But I`m trying to find out why we need to grow not because the rest of the world is wrecking their cities.
There has to be a point where we ruin our area to support more people.
Or are we already past that point?

[AlienSoldier]

Thanks for not slamming my question.
But I`m trying to find out why we need to grow not because the rest of the world is wrecking their cities.
There has to be a point where we ruin our area to support more people.
Or are we already past that point?

I don’t think Kelowna has lost its charm, intact I think it’s maturing ;).

But one of he best places I saw City planning that in the long term has kept costs in check has been Germany. When they build out, the put infrastructure, transit at the Center and build that out first, change the zones to what works( as in areas for farming, schools, playgrounds malls are all set and then they build the housing. It works wonderfully.

[Grandan]

the hillsides are to steep lol that's a good one perhaps you should take off your blinders or get out of the house a bit more

I spent a career in the design of subdivisions in and around Kelowna. I have prepared hundreds of hours of slope analysis to determine viability of the land to build houses on, particularly, the Glenmore Highlands and I can tell you that there are lot fewer paces that can be built on than you might think.

[Terris]

It artificially raises the price of land by eliminating the supply. It does not seem to make sense to create bubbles of land surrounded by housing and resticting the viability of actually farming that land. Too much ALR land is "farm" in the form of creative book-keeping. I don't see that keeping several horses and feeding them all that hay somehow qualifies for farm status.

Or better still growing hay so that rich people can indulge their equestrian interests.
The available land for redevelopment will soon run out then what?

Some of the remaining bottomlands best suited for farming (ie. along Springfield) are being deliberately left fallow to decrease supply and increase prices elsewhere.

The so called "bubbles of land" were created by the cabal of developers from the 60's who ran rampant and unchecked taking whatever lands they could for as much profit as they could with no regard for the future consequences.

The best farm lands on the flats were mowed down first.

And then there's this gem...

The ALC needs to get in gear and accept the fact that food is mostly grown elsewhere.

Wow...

That's some rich guy thinking there...

Even a basic cost analysis of the factors (affordable food, long term, above minimum wage jobs etc.) determining long term community values of the continuous use of farmland v. one-off profiteering use for luxury subdivisions, shows the flaw and inherent danger in this type of thinking.

What the ALC needs to do is shake off the developer parasites and enforce the business of farming.

Buy and use ALR land for farming or lose it to someone who will farm it...

[LTD]

ya I guess all the homes on hillsides here remain there due to magic

[Grandan]

ya I guess all the homes on hillsides here remain there due to magic

I hope you are having a nice giggle.
The City of Kelowna subdivision bylaw regulations require that houses not be built on slopes greater than 30%. Most of the Glenmore Highlands are well in excess of 50%. Where you see houses on the hillsides at Wilden they are actually located on natural benches that are not so steep and wide enough to support both a road and houses on one side or the other, sometimes both sides if it can be fit in.
It is no surprise that the hilltop is developed while the steep hillsides are not and much of it will never be built on because of the steepness.
The alternative to the Wilden model is another mountain in Kelowna where the rock was blasted away to create the building sites otherwise it could not be built on.

[LANDM]

Wow...

That's some rich guy thinking there...
What the ALC needs to do is shake off the developer parasites and enforce the business of farming.
Buy and use ALR land for farming or lose it to someone who will farm it...

Says the guy who has never farmed a piece of ALR land in his life.
Does "shaking off the developer parasites" include you, who worked to remove his land from the ALR to make a profit on the sale?

Yeah, you really bought ALR land to use it for farming.

Are you at a Cabal meeting today?

[LTD]

ya I guess all the homes on hillsides here remain there due to magic

I hope you are having a nice giggle.
The City of Kelowna subdivision bylaw regulations require that houses not be built on slopes greater than 30%. Most of the Glenmore Highlands are well in excess of 50%. Where you see houses on the hillsides at Wilden they are actually located on natural benches that are not so steep and wide enough to support both a road and houses on one side or the other, sometimes both sides if it can be fit in.
It is no surprise that the hilltop is developed while the steep hillsides are not and much of it will never be built on because of the steepness.
The alternative to the Wilden model is another mountain in Kelowna where the rock was blasted away to create the building sites otherwise it could not be built on.

ya I'm having a very good laugh, at you that is, in one sentence you say the hills are to steep to build on then you try and correct yourself by saying oh ya unless they blast, well no chit Sherlock that's what they do lol. Theres a whole lot of hillside all over Kelowna that can and will be built on instead of wiping out farmland despite your incorrect analysis.

[Terris]

Says the guy who has never farmed a piece of ALR land in his life.
Does "shaking off the developer parasites" include you, who worked to remove his land from the ALR to make a profit on the sale?

Yeah, you really bought ALR land to use it for farming.

Are you at a Cabal meeting today?

Wrong on every point, but...

I was setting up ladders, pruning, thinning, picking fruit, driving tractors, loading bins on trucks and setting up sprinklers on several of my uncle's orchards and farms by the time I was 12 years old, and did so all through school...

You too??

As an adult I learned of the collusive activities of your cabal simply by buying out a 50 year crown lease, set 6000 feet in the mountains which; 2 years after the fact, turns out, had been inventoried as ALR land by some overzealous administrative flunky as ordered by someone with influence to balance out the depletion of ALR lands which was and still is, occurring at the hands of said influential cabalists down here in the valley bottom.

As far as never farming goes, I know you could write a book on how to let the Springfield Road ALR land and several others in the area lie unfarmed and fallow for nearly 50 years.

Has the cabal forgotten how to farm?

Use it or lose it...

[AlienSoldier]

The way I see it we have a few options.

1. Live with current restrictions in land use and have a few farmers with massive homes on 10 to 20 acres and build further and further out. Thus causing more traffic, higher service fees and increasing the cost of housing.
2. Build bigger and higher downtown but then focus most of the services and attention there as that is where the population is. Which would cause area's outside such as those living in homes on the mountains and in the valley outside of the downtown core to feel left out, and again have the cost of housing increase accordingly.
3. Adjust farmland so that you have bands (such as greenbelts) and build out a so that both housing and farming are given an equal importance allowing for a balance.

No one solution will solve this issue, but to get services further out costs more so the City needs to be built in a manner which sustains services and its growth. The population is finally getting to a size where infrastructure is starting to hit capacity and issue with privacy and the area around people are starting to appear.

[LANDM]

Says the guy who has never farmed a piece of ALR land in his life.
Does "shaking off the developer parasites" include you, who worked to remove his land from the ALR to make a profit on the sale?

Yeah, you really bought ALR land to use it for farming.

Are you at a Cabal meeting today?

Wrong on every point, but...

I was setting up ladders, pruning, thinning, picking fruit, driving tractors, loading bins on trucks and setting up sprinklers on several of my uncle's orchards and farms by the time I was 12 years old, and did so all through school...

You too??

As an adult I learned of the collusive activities of your cabal simply by buying out a 50 year crown lease, set 6000 feet in the mountains which; 2 years after the fact, turns out, had been inventoried as ALR land by some overzealous administrative flunky as ordered by someone with influence to balance out the depletion of ALR lands which was and still is, occurring at the hands of said influential cabalists down here in the valley bottom.

As far as never farming goes, I know you could write a book on how to let the Springfield Road ALR land and several others in the area lie unfarmed and fallow for nearly 50 years.

Has the cabal forgotten how to farm?

Use it or lose it...

Looks like I am correct on every point.....way to farm that ALR land of yours. Working on a farm as a kid for someone whose main aim was to sell out isn’t exactly farming your ALR land.

But buying land and removing it from the ALR to make a profit is *precisely* what you are ranting against.

Of course, *your* land shouldn’t have been in the ALR. Everyone else’s, yes. Just not yours. There’s an excuse for everything, isn’t there?

But, I’m most curious on how you "know" about what I could write a book on? Do tell.

[jimmy4321]

I think Kelowna needs to do what it takes to make the city run efficiently. I'm kind of a fan of taller buildings, more dense populations, making transit work better, bringing emenities to these places to encourage growth, getting out or through the city easier. People will move depending on their needs and wants. In the meantime lifes a , live elsewhere where its more affordable.
IMO most anything north of High Rd Glenmore in the 90's was a missed opportunity and waste of space.