REGINA – To make way for the Regina bypass, the province is buying up thousands of acres of land around the city.
But having decades old farmland expropriated by the government isn’t sitting well with everyone.
James Ripplinger has owned over 300 acres of farmland southeast of Regina since 1972. He grew wheat, barley and peas year-in and year-out.
Now, his farmland is being expropriated by the government. “They want to put the bypass right through the middle of the quarter,” he said.
In January 2015, the 81-year-old received a letter from the ministry of highway saying they needed to buy 44 acres of his land. Two weeks ago he found out they want 120 acres, at a value of $20,000 each.
Just two years ago, the land was slated to become Regina’s newest subdivision. Ripplinger said he was in talks with four developers to receive nearly double that amount.
“One land developer said ‘I like the slope of this land.’ I’m going to start building here in 2014.’,” Ripplinger said. “Then they found out the bypass was going to go through here and every one of them backed out. It’s devalued my land something terrible!”
He thinks he should be compensated at the rate the developers were willing to pay and is ready to take his concerns all the way. “It’s too bad that I probably have to take the government to court.”
Not everyone feels the same way through. Some farmers were already looking to sell their land and retire and were happy when the government came along with a cheque in hand.
“We’ve been able to purchase 50% of the properties on a willing seller, willing buyer basis. Negotiations continue with a number of landowners where we’ve had to expropriate land. They have two years to negotiate a price with us,” said Nithy Govindasamy, deputy minister with highways and infrastructure.
Money isn’t the only problem Ripplinger has with the expropriation though. He wanted to move his house onto the property near the bypass.
The province wrote his a letter that stated that wouldn’t be a problem.
“It’s right here, black and white. The existing approach will remain and I’ll have access here, put my house where there’s high ground,” the farmer said.
Just recently, he was told that could no longer happen.
“They suggested there’s a few acres down at the end there, about 35 acres left that I could put my house. But it’s a slough. It’s a low lying area and I don’t want to put my house there.”
The ministry said Ripplinger can’t put his house in that location anymore because there would only be right-turn-in, right-turn-out access.
Highways added if the farmer wants to have additional dirt brought in to raise a part of the land to a safe height for a dry home, that can be negotiated.
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