Inverness, Victoria counties mull land-use regulations
The issue of preserving agricultural land has cropped up in rural Cape Breton.
“The majority of lands in Victoria and Inverness counties are not planned at all,” said Paul Dec, who works with the Eastern District Planning Commission.
“There are no land-use restrictions whatsoever apart from wind turbines.”
The municipal councils in both counties passed motions in November 2017 to explore possibilities of agricultural land-use planning.
“They voted because they received information from the Inverness-Victoria Federation of Agriculture that agricultural land is rapidly disappearing and farming may disappear from these counties all together if no action is taken,” Dec said.
Only 10 per cent of the farm land that produced crops or functioned as pastures in Inverness and Victoria in 1951 are still in agricultural use, according to a June report from the planning commission. In the decade from 2006 to 2016, Victoria and Inverness lost 48 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively, of their farm land. Of the 383,000 hectares of land in Inverness County, only 10,925 are used for agriculture. In Victoria, only 3,640 of the county’s 287,000 hectares are used for crops or pasture.
“The impetus for us to look at this happened a number of years ago after our food security committee at the municipal level started to look at the actual land ownership and land use in the municipality,” said Jim Mustard, who represents the village of Inverness, Glenville and Dunvegan areas on county council.
He said it became apparent that effective land-use planning was lacking, whatever the land was being used for, and that a mechanism for farm land succession had to be put in place that didn’t financially discourage young farmers who wanted to get established.
“I am not saying we’re putting in bylaws or anything like that but the result might be something that can help to shape good planning with regard to agricultural land.”
One Inverness County farmer said, with the availability of farm land in the county, land-use bylaws are not necessary.
“As a farmer, I want there to be a future for agriculture in our area but, as an owner of agricultural property, I don’t want bylaws that hinder how I use that property or lower the property value,” he said. “I want to retain the rights I currently have and leave my options open.”
Dec heard similar comments at three open houses in Mabou, Margaree and Middle River in March and April that each attracted about 50 people.
“Some people said land-use controls are a good thing for our area and we support that,” Dec said. “However, they shouldn’t be overly restrictive towards economic opportunities of landowners. Some landowners in the area desire to have the opportunity to either subdivide their land and use it as residential properties for their families or for tourist purposes.
“They want to preserve the land and keep agriculture in the area but they are not sure if landuse planning is the best tool to achieve this. They can imagine that it could be a complementary tool along with other measures, such as taxation.”
The planning commission report found that the majority of open house participants called for higher taxation of non-resident property owners, who only spend a couple of weeks per year on their properties, and to eliminate the farm tax-exempt status for land known to be idle for years.
“We are not making up the idea that agriculture was important to our history or is potentially important in the future,” Mustard said. “In other words, the world needs more supply of food and historically we were a net exporter of food in Inverness County.”
Mustard recognizes the difficulty of introducing land-use regulation in rural areas where no regulations have previously existed.
“With the golf course at Cabot Links (in Inverness), there are people flying in in helicopters everyday who have more money than you and I will ever see in a lifetime,” Mustard said. “It’s nothing for them to buy whatever beautiful property they can see. We’re left on a little sliver of land making sure their beds are made.”
Dec said the next step is to form a committee or committees to pour over the feedback from the open houses and to deliberate on what the next steps could be. It will be months before any options, including potential regulations, would be brought to county councils.
The Municipal Government Act gives municipalities authority for planning within their respective jurisdictions through the adoption of municipal strategies and land-use by-laws consistent with interests and regulations of the province. Dec said the municipality of Kings County has done just that with its farm land preservation regulations.
“Those are regulations that work well for Kings County,” Dec said. “The importance for us in Inverness and Victoria counties are that the communities come up with something that works best for them.”