Green Utility Proposal
A Way to Save Farmland
Farmland, forests and other green spaces are rapidly being consumed throughout the Metro Vancouver region, which includes Maple Ridge, for such alternate uses as housing, industry and transportation corridors. We can currently feed one out of two people in our province if we use every inch of land available. This will shrink to one out of three people by 2025 at projected rates of immigration into BC. Much of green space development is driven by a desire to strengthen a community's tax base and provide amenities. In our current economic system, we tend to undervalue the economic output of green spaces. The Green Utility system I am proposing will go a long way toward resolving this imbalance. It provides market-based mechanisms that allow for maximum flexibility and fairness.
Jackson Farm
The Green Utility System
The underlying concept of the Green Utility system is that green spaces provide benefits to citizens in the same way that water and sewage utilities do. Therefore, it is reasonable to pay for these benefits if funds are required to maintain them. The Green Utility is a minor user fee ($10-$20) that each household in the Metro Vancouver area would pay toward the cost of maintaining green spaces and for our cities to hold back from developing these green spaces. The revenues from the Green Utility can be used to compensate municipalities directly for foregoing development and to secure areas of land for food production and conservation.
How Green Utility Revenues Will Be Used
The revenues from the Green Utility will be used in at least four ways.
- Direct Municipal Compensation
Each municipality in Metro Vancouver will receive money from the Green Utility in proportion to its share of the total green space available in the region. Most of the revenues would be distributed this way. Example: Richmond and Maple Ridge would receive higher amounts than more developed cities, such as Vancouver or Burnaby. This will provide an incentive to keep green spaces green.
- Farmland Acquisition Loans
Young farmers are finding it impossible to purchase land and to make a living farming it at prices over $100,000 per acre. Retiring farmers cannot pass on their land to their children because they need the retirement income and their children cannot pay the
market value. Therefore, it is in the community's interest to make farmland acquisition possible. My loan scheme will allow farmers to purchase land at 25% of the current market price and top up their acquisition with a forgivable loan of up to 75% that is covenanted to the land title. As long as the farmer produces a minimum level of agricultural output, he will not have to repay the loan. When it comes time to retire, the farmer can sell to another farmer, taking his 25% equity out of the property at the current market value. The new farmer only has to pay the current value of a 25% stake in the land. If the property is no longer actively farmed, however, the covenanted loan must be paid back with penalties many times higher than the current market value of the original stake in the land. This will provide a disincentive to take the land out of active agricultural production, or to create "estate houses" that underutilize productive farmland.
- Land Trusts
Some parcels of land have historic value that warrants keeping the ownership in the public domain, but allow private individuals to lease the land for farming purposes. A portion of the Green Utility revenues will be used to acquire these properties and pay for the administration of private leases.
- Public Commons and First Nations Commons
Public ownership and operation is best suited to some lands, such as traditional First Nations food gardens in forested areas. A portion of the Green Utility revenues can be used to acquire and protect these areas for public use and to protect indigenous food sovereignty.
The exact formulas used to calculate the Green Utility fees and the funding mechanisms will be subject to negotiation by the Board of Metro Vancouver and the participating municipalities.
