More Prime Agricultural Land Threatened
July 31, 2005

City planning staff are recommending the rezoning to industrial uses of four acres of prime agricultural land in upper Stoney Creek. The change is being sought by Dan Greer Enterprises, a heavy equipment company on Highway 20 that wants to use the farmland for "the storage of equipment and a demonstration area".

The area is "class two" agricultural land. Less than two percent of Canada falls into the class one or class two categories. Both provincial and city policies call for the protection of prime agricultural land (classes 1, 2 and 3). Despite those rules, over 2500 acres have been lost in Hamilton in the past decade according to the Vision 2020 Sustainability Indicators Report issued last December.

The staff report says "the proposed application meets the goals of Vision 2020 in that it will allow an existing farm-related business to physically expand in a logical manner with no negative impact to adjacent land uses. Any potential impacts will be mitigated through special setbacks, screening and landscaping requirements."

Dan Greer Enterprises sells or rents a range of machinery including hydraulic excavators, forklifts, skid steer loaders, backhoes and tree chippers (see photo on CATCH website). One of its customers is the City of Hamilton. While the staff report describes it as a "farm equipment sales and service business", the company is not listed under farm equipment in the phone book. Instead, it can be found under "Contractors' Equipment" in the yellow pages where it is also identified the local representative of JCB Construction Equipment.

The rezoning was originally sought by the company in 2003, but was blocked during a provincial moratorium on rural land rezoning that was imposed while the McGuinty government put its Greenbelt legislation in place. City staff note this obstacle no longer applies and contend that the proposed rezoning is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS) on land use.

"The agricultural policies of the PPS permit agriculturally-related uses in Prime Agricultural Areas," says the staff report. "Such uses are defined as small scale farm-related commercial and industrial uses, which are directly related to farming and need to be located close to farms. As the proposed use of the property is considered an agriculturally-related use, the application meets the intent of the PPS."

The area in question is "class two" agricultural land.
Less than two percent of Canada falls into the class one or class two categories.

The PPS section on agricultural land begins with the principle that "prime agricultural areas will be protected for long term use for agriculture." It goes on to prohibit re-designation of these areas except for urban boundary expansions, aggregate operations, or "limited non-residential uses". The latter, however, requires that "there are no reasonable alternative locations which avoid prime agricultural areas."

The staff report can be viewed at
http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/clerk/agendas-minutes-reports/
Planning-Economic-Development/2005/Aug02/PD04001(a).pdf.
The website for Dan Greer Enterprises is http://www.equipmentsearch.com/dealers/1594/.