Reports to Council

Stephen Bentley, the City’s Community Planning Manager, provided Council with background on Agricultural Land Reserve policies and decisions and their impact on land use planning in Kamloops. The Agricultural Land Reserve takes precedence over local land-use legislation, meaning the City must ensure plans and bylaws affecting Agricultural Land Reserve land comply with provincial requirements and must refer certain proposals to the Agricultural Land Commission. 

Since legislative changes in 2019, private property owners can no longer apply directly to the Agricultural Land Commission to remove land from the Agricultural Land Reserve, and the Agricultural Land Commission’s decisions now focus primarily on preserving agricultural land rather than broader community, economic, or planning considerations. This policy change correlates with a significant decline in successful exclusion applications. The City has been increasingly limited in its ability to redirect Agricultural Land Reserve land toward urban development.

• View the full report.
• View the presentation within the Council meeting slide deck.
• Contact for further information:
  Stephen Bentley | [email protected]

View the full Council Highlights for this meeting