A Richmond farming family is making succession plans and they hope to subdivide their property to allow the next generation to take over.
David May, who owns Mayland Farms on No. 7 Road, would like to retire on a three-acre corner of the farm with his wife in their house and sever the rest of the property for his children to make into a cranberry farm.
Because the property, where he has lived since 1988 and has had a partial ownership of since 1972, is in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), the application to subdivide needs to be forwarded by city council to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) for final approval.
May explained to council on Tuesday that his four adult children are involved in the farm operation, and they need to have clear title on the farm portion in order to get financing to create the cranberry farm.
“My wife and I are (at a) time to retire and it’s to pass it on to the kids’ – succession has a lot to do with this,” May said.
As part of the application, the owner has agreed to put a “no build” covenant on the future cranberry farm portion of the property, which means a house couldn’t be built on it without council removing the covenant.
Coun. Linda McPhail pointed out at Tuesday’s committee meeting the family has been farming for almost 50 years on the property.
“I think it’s very prudent to be looking at farm succession and estate planning and this is a way that allows them to do that,” McPhail said.
The Food Security and Agricultural Advisory Committee supported the application.
Council voted to forward the application to the ALC with Couns. Michael Wolfe, Carol Day and Kelly Greene voting against it – it will come back to council next week for a final vote.
