Citizens call on Richmond city council to cap home sizes on farmland

“Let’s grow crops on farm land, not mansions.”

That’s the message the Richmond Citizens’ Association (RCA) will be delivering to city council Monday night.

Spokesperson Kelly Greene says the Association wants to see home sizes on the Agriculture Land Reserve reduced to a maximum of  just over 5,300 square feet, half of what is currently allowed.

Greene says ‘mega homes’ are being built on valuable farmland, making property unaffordable, and she says the city needs to step in.

“And it is not available for lease either. If farmers are able to get a lease, very often that lease is very tenuous and so the farmers aren’t able to make the improvements that they need to do annually to increase their productivity and be better farmers. Because they don’t know if they’re going to be there in the following year,” said Greene.

She says there is a rally scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday, prior to the council meeting.

Councillor Carol Day says there has been a moratorium in place for building applications since last year because the city received an overwhelming number in one month alone.

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“We were in the planning stage of reducing the house sizes from 23,000 square feet to what ended up being 11,000 square feet… so we put a moratorium on applications during that time because we already had 43 applications,” said Day.

She says the RCA is choosing a good time to voice their concerns, considering that staff is in the middle of writing a report after receiving information from the public at open houses.

Council says staff will be eventually providing council with recommendations for the city to vote on house sizes.