The Rural Voice, 1998-07, Page 16Agrilaw
Saving the farm — what is agricultural use?
Many rural municipalities have
adopted official plans to restrict
development on prime agricultural
lands and to preserve such lands for
agricultural uses. Provincial planning
policies similarly require that, for
prime agricultural land to be used for
non-agricultural purposes, the need
for the industrial facility and the justi-
fication for using those lands rather
than alternate locations on non -prime
agricultural lands must be established.
In the context of such planning criteria,
the Ontario Environmental Assess-
ment Board was recently required to
determine whether sewage lagoons to
provide sludge for application as
fertilizer on farmlands should be
permitted on prime agricultural land.
The issue was presented to the
Board upon an application under the
Environmental Protection Act for an
order declaring inoperable the bylaw
of the rural municipality restricting
development on agricultural land.
The Board determined that, although
construction of lagoon cells to pro-
vide fertilizer sludge was a use permit-
ted upon lands designated as rural,
such a use was not permitted on the
subject lands designated as agricul-
tural. The
municipality's
official plan
provided:
"The
agriculture
classification
of lands shall
mean that the
predominant
use of the
land in the
areas so
designated shall be for agriculture
and farm -related uses.. . The pur-
pose of the agricultural classifica-
tion is to protect and preserve such
land for agriculture purposes and
to prevent uncontrolled and
scattered development."
In deciding that the proposed use
Court ams
be
built ort prime
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III
12 THE RURAL VOICE
of agricultural land for the
establishment of sewage lagoons was
contrary to the intention of the
municipal council as evidenced by the
official plan, the Board stated that:
"We conclude that because
municipal waste disposal sites and
farm -oriented commercial and
industrial sites are not permitted
uses in the agriculture designation,
but they are specifically included
as permitted uses in the rural
designation, the municipal council
intended that they not be permitted
in the more restrictive agriculture
designation."
The Board then considered the pro-
ponent's application that the bylaw be
declared inoperable to permit con-
struction of the sewage lagoon. After
review of provincial policies relating
to agricultural land preservation, the
Board decided that the non-agricul-
tural use of the subject lands had not
been justified. The Board character-
ized the proposed use as follows:
"Although we found the noise,
dust and particulate emissions
evidence useful and credible, we
are not convinced that the proposed
facility, at the scale proposed, is
compatible with the surrounding
agricultural uses. On this issue,
we accept (the) evidence that this
is a significant new industrial use
that is being, introduced into a
relatively passive agricultural area,
and that the scale is significant in
comparison to other uses...
After extensive review and
argument about the official plan
provisions and their interpretation,
we concluded that the organic
waste transfer station proposed
would not be permitted in the
agriculture designation of the
official plan and would not be in
compliance with the official plan,
despite the applicant's contention
that it could be considered under
the rural designation. Given our
finding that the land on which the
sewage lagoons would be located
is prime agricultural land and our
review of provincial agricultural
preservation policies, we
concluded that provincial policy
requirements were not met by the