Farming enjoying a fruitful revival in downtown Westbank

The reclamation of once-derelict farmlands south of downtown Westbank is testament to the success of West Kelowna’s agricultural plan, city councillors heard Tuesday.

Five of six large agricultural properties around the end of Brown Road are either being actively farmed or soon will be, city planner Brent Magnan said.

That contrasts to the situation that existed in 2016 when there was almost no farming in the area and there was pressure from developers to open the barren lands for housing construction, Magnan said.

“As a whole, the area generally is a real success story from an agricultural perspective because if you fast-forward to 2021, we now have five of those six parcels under development for new agricultural uses, whether they’ve been planted with grapes or otherwise, or they actually have a cidery or a winery on them now,” he said.

Magnan made his comments after council heard some residents of Brown Road are upset that public access to a new winery, called the Crown and Thieves, is now going to be off that street rather than Harding Road, a cul-de-sac further south that overlooks Gellatly Bay.

Some Brown Roaders are bothered about the extra traffic the winery, made to look as if it’s a 400-year-old ruin, will bring to their street, council heard.

“I do understand the concern from the residents in the area, but this definitely does meet the plan as to where we had hoped things would go when we did this agriculture plan back in 2016,” Magnan said.

A key part of the plan was the city signalling clearly it would not support residential development on the vacant properties along Brown Road. That reduced pricing pressures on the properties, Magnan said.

“There had been a significant amount of speculation on those agricultural lands and interest in developing them, to extend the multi-family and residential components down into those areas,” he said.

Coun. Doug Findlater said it was a good-news story, with productive agricultural use again being made of farmlands and new wineries such as Crown and Thieves, which he called a “stellar facility.”

“It’s another way that West Kelowna’s Wine Trail is just going to rock,” Findlater said. “Good on them. Pleased to see it.”