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City flooded with building permit applications on farmland

The City of Richmond has received a flood of applications for building permits for houses on farmland since Jan. 3, around the time of a staff report to council on regulating the size of homes in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR).
Richmond News
Baines
Richmond resident John Baines said he was shocked to see the size and scale of this under-construction 22,000-square-foot home on agricultural land on No. 4 Road, just south of Steveston Highway. Richmond city councillors were, on Tuesday, expected to consider a move to restrict the size of such homes. Photo by Graeme Wood/Richmond News

The City of Richmond has received a flood of applications for building permits for houses on farmland since Jan. 3, around the time of a staff report to council on regulating the size of homes in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR).

In the past two months, planners have been handed 17 applications. By comparison, the city normally issues 15 permits per year (from 2009 to 2016 there were 103 permits issued for AG1 zones).

Fearing such an uptick, Couns. Carol Day and Harold Steves voted against public consultation on home sizes in the ALR on Jan. 23. Day had suggested immediately drafting a bylaw to temporarily limit homes to 7,500-square-feet and then taking the matter to public consultation.