Recycle that Christmas tree page 11
Three-year sentence in Kaulius case page 8
Tuesday January 1, 2013
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Industrial land reserve sought Surrey alone has lost more than 1,500 hectares of scarce industry-related space by Jeff Nagel
“You project that out and we have a real problem.”
LEADER FILE PHOTO
Port Metro Vancouver plans for continued increases in container shipments, such as at Deltaport, are increasingly at odds with the shrinking supply of industrial land needed to organize containers.
EDITION
PORT METRO Vancouver wants an Industrial Land Reserve created to block cities from rezoning more job-supporting land and avoid a scenario where the expanding port must increasingly raid farmland. Officials there say the decisive step by the province is needed or else the port will be on a collision course with the region’s other great protected land bank – the 40-year-old Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). While agriculture advocates regularly tally how much farmland vanishes each year to development, Port Metro Vancouver frets about eroding industrial land, which is lucrative for both developers and cities to convert to residential or commercial use. “We are extremely concerned about the amount of industrial land that has been lost in the last two generations,” port president and CEO Robin Silvester said. More than 3,000 hectares of industrial land has been rezoned in the last 30 years in Metro Robin Silvester Vancouver in just Surrey, Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond, he noted. More than half of it has been lost in Surrey. “You project that out and we have a real problem,” he said. He foresees a future where industry and port-related ventures are increasingly stymied by the shortage and soaring cost of suitable land. Efforts have been made by regional planners and politicians to protect Metro’s industrial footprint. Metro Vancouver’s new Regional Growth Strategy now requires a board vote to approve industrial land rezonings.
See REGION / Page 4
Snowy owls starving Delta raptor rescue group blames encroaching public
by Adrian McNair DELTA’S FOREMOST wildlife rescue agency for birds says the majestic snowy owls that have captivated the hearts of bird lovers are dying from starvation. And curious onlookers are largely to blame, according to its founding director. “We’ve had calls from all over. We’ve had a few shipped in to us that haven’t made it,” said Bev Day, founding director of the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (OWL).
“They’re basically starving.” A large number of snowy owls migrated south to the Lower Mainland from the high Arctic for the second year in a row, and have been visible for weeks in large numbers in Boundary Bay at the base of 64 and 72 Streets. But the birds don’t appear to be doing very well. Day says rehabilitating the owls is “touch-and-go” and likened their condition to anorexia. When they come in they have to be fed frequently, but in small portions. See SNOWY OWLS / Page 3
ADRIAN MCNAIR / BLACK PRESS
An injured snowy owl is treated at the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Delta.
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