Owners of ex-sawmill site seek OK for non-farm uses

Owners say they want to be able to store RVs, boats on farmland to help pay for its remediation

A former sawmill on farmland should be repurposed temporarily as a storage lot for RVs and boats, Kelowna city council will hear Monday.

Non-farm uses are proposed by the landowner as a way to finance the ongoing agricultural reclamation of the property, once described as among the city’s biggest eyesores.

“With non-farm uses, we could hopefully generate enough income to remediate the land further, as there are large amounts of wood debris to be dealt with,” Jeetender and Manraj Kandola write in a letter to the city.

City staff support the Kandolas’ intentions and recommend council endorse their application to the Agricultural Land Commission.

“The proposal is part of an overall plan to reduce existing wood waste, which currently prohibits the use of the site for agriculture,” city staff write in a report to council.

The Kandolas bought the site, formerly home to Russo’s Sawmill, at 982 Old Vernon Rd. in 2005. The sawmill was established long before the Agricultural Land Reserve was established in 1973.

About 160,000 cubic metres of debris wood covered the property when the Kandolas bought it.

“We have picked away at the pile of debris wood and have approximately 30,000 cubic metres of wood left over,” the Kandolas say.

The cleanup has been a long and difficult process, with the wood waste occasionally spontaneously combusting. In 2008, the Kandolas said they had spent $100,000 on the cleanup to that point.

The Kandolas have tried to get the property out of the ALR so it could be developed for other uses, but the Agricultural Land Commission refused the exclusion application.

In 2014, readers of The Daily Courier included the property in a list of the Central Okanagan’s top 10 eyesores.

Even if non-farm uses on the property are allowed by the ALC, the Kandolas caution full reclamation, estimated to cost another $1 million, will still take time.

“This project isn’t a small undertaking as we have already invested over a decade trying to reclaim the land back to agricultural use,” they say.

GARY NYLANDER/The Daily Courier Part of a former sawmill site along Old Vernon Road could be used to store boats and RVs under a plan to be considered Monday by Kelowna city council.