The Chilliwack
Progress
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Eyesite
Food Truck Fest Chilliwack’s first food truck festival draws a crowd.
Wednesday
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News
Green
Putting the ‘green’ in Greendale school.
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Sports
Chiefs
Berkshire Bears sign on with Chiefs.
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Rainbow Greenhouses unveils $8.5M expansion Jenna Hauck The Progress
Rainbow Greenhouses opened its doors to the public to reveal its newly built eight-acre expansion on Saturday. The new section is an addition to the company’s older 13-acre building which allows them to now grow 70 per cent more product. The $8.5-million upgrade is phase one of four. Over the process of about 10 years, the other three phases will be completed, says owner Stan Vander Waal. The new greenhouse is made of glass, unlike the old one which is made of poly material. Although the glass is less insulating than the poly panelling, it lets in more natural light which results in a higher crop rotation. The glass buildings also feature shaded ceiling sections which close before sundown to trap the daytime
Visitors wander through a newly built eight-acre greenhouse addition during an open house at Rainbow Greenhouses on Saturday.
Continued: GREENHOUSE/ p5
JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Flood protection offered in trade for ALR exclusion Jennifer Feinberg The Progress
An application to remove almost 18 hectares of high-quality farmland from the Agricultural Land Reserve is being eyed for a future industrial park to foster “agriindustrial” activity in Chilliwack. Twice in the past nine years, the property at 45400 Parr Road has been the subject of exclusion requests to get it out of the ALR. Both times they were turned down. But this time the formal application for exclusion to the Agricultural Land Commission is accompanied by a bold offer for flood protection improvements.
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The idea is to build a low-elevation berm along the crumbling riverbank at Carey Point – in exchange for the ALR exclusion approval for the 17.6 ha of land on Parr Road. It’s an idea the members of Chilliwack’s Agricultural Advisory Committee gave the nod to last year, along with supporting the exclusion proposal in principle. “The applicant seeks approval to exclude the subject property from the Agricultural Land Reserve to facilitate future ‘employment lands’ development particularly for agriindustrial and business park use,” according to the City of Chilliwack staff report.
The ALC turned down an exclusion application in 2003, and again in 2012 when the owners proposed exclusion together with the offer of property elsewhere in the province. The ALC decision noted the property was “class 1 and 2 farmland, and had agricultural capability,” therefore the exclusion could adversely impact agriculture, and was not in line with the ALC’s mandate of protecting agricultural land. “The ALC also provided the rationale that the environmental setbacks on the subject property would limit the amount of land which could be used for an agriindustrial park.” City officials had included the
property – because of its proximity to urban development and transportation links – in the 2003 Employment Lands block exclusion with a view to secure lands that might be suitable for economic development, so the current application is seen as being “in line with the City’s long-term economic development goals,” according to the staff report. Abbotsford-based Homecraft Construction and Wilmark Homes, are listed on the documents as the applicants, with Peter Kingma as signatory for both. A covenant would see protection of up to 156 hectares of agricultural land at the northern tip of the city,
which has been subject to recurrent flooding, including incidents in 2011 and 2012. The deal is that the applicants would opt for Option 3 as mapped out by Northwest Hydraulic Consultants in a December 16, 2011 report. Estimated to cost almost $6 million, the flood protection works would include construction of an access road and flood barrier along Carey Point. “Option 3 is an access road that would basically reconstruct the failed orphan dike from the end of Carey Road to Carey Point with alignment adjusted to account for recent erosion.” Continued: ALR/ p5
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