HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Citizens News, 1977-03-30, Page 17Citizens News, March 30, 1977
Page 17
NFU presents brief to County Development committee
The National • Farmers' Union
was one of several Huron County
farm organizations and com-
modity groups which presented
viewpoints to the Huron County
Development Committee.
The NFU brief, dealing with
land use, hydro plant develop-
ment and health care, will be
referred to the various com-
mittees of county council having
interest in the brief, likely the
planning board, the board of
health and the development
committee.
The matters brought forth in
the brief should then come to the
entire county council for
discussion by way of committee
reports.
The NFU brief is as follows:
"We wish to congratulate the
Countyandthe PlanningBoard for
the effort made to get an official
plan working. As the townships in
Huron County adopt secondary
plans, zoning by-laws will be
incorporated into the plans and a
plan is only as good as its zoning
bylaws.
"Huron County being 89percent
Class 1 and 2 agriculture land, we
expect agriculture will be the
predominate industry in the
county, taking precedence over
other purposes using prime
agriculture land.
"We hope it is the Development
Committee's intention to retain
the present type rural 'com-
munity we have in the county,
and to create a climate that will
allow the family farmer to
remain in control of our
agriculture land base.
"If this is our goal then simply
zoning our prime land.
agriculture is not good enough.
Rules have to be written into the
zoning bylaws to accomplish this.
"The following points we hope
will be adopted in the zoning
bylaws in the county:
"-that there be an upper limit
no greater than 500 acres that any
one individual farm family can
control.
"-that a family farm be
classified as one that the family
operates by the fact that it is in
financial control, provides the
decision making and supplies
most of the labour.
"- that any livestock or poultry
unit must either own or have
under long term lease enough
land to handle the manure from
the entire operation.
"-that where land is zoned for
livestock or poultry, the farmer
who follows an accepted code of
practices have the assurance the
zone will not be changed.
"-only classified family farms
be elegible for tax rebates,
special incentive loans, im-
provements grants, the loans,
farm subsidies, etc.
"-that only farm related
commercial corporation be
allowed to operate commercial
enterprise in the agriculture zone
and these be carefully screened
for need.
"-that severances . not be
granted to - accommodate ad-
ditional residences on class 1 and
2 agriculture land; if it is
.desirable to build an additional
house, then it would become part
of the farm property.
"-if in the future any
agriculture land must be rezoned
for urban development, the
farmer receive full value of the
land for farming purposes plus
adequate compensation for all
inconveniences that may be
imposed upon him.
"-we seriously question . the
advisability or necessity for land
developers to own land for the
purposes of urban, industrial or
recreational development. We
believe that such development
should be publicly planned and
that the public should 'acquire
land for future use for such
purposes.
The role of the private
developers would then be to
contract to make the necessary
improvements to such land,
Experience has demonstrated
that allowing private developers
to acquire and own land leads to
speculation in land for the pur-
pose of capital gains, irrational
land use and poorly planned
communities.
Detect reluctance
"We detect a reluctance on the
part of our municipal politicians
to show any real leadership when
it comes to having the above
points incorporated into our
zoning bylaws, we feel that a
toothless bylaw will, in the
future, regulate the family
farmer, at best, to a manager of
an agriculture unit, or at the
worst, a hired man, and the
charmed circle of ownership will
be lost to the future generations
of the present owners in our
county,
"If the farmer is to give up
some of his speculative rights in
order to keep a reasonable food
resource base, to grow the
nation's food, then oursenior
levels of governmentmustdevelop.
and legislate a realistic.
stabilization plan based on the
cost of production including a fair
return for labour and investment.
"Realistic stabilization must
go along with zoning, and the
township councils, the county
council and the farmers them-
selves must inform both the
provincial and the federal
governments that only with
stabilization will zoning Huron
County agriculture be ac -
Please turn to Page 1 9
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