Three More ALR Exclusion Applications in South Surrey. Farmland Is Disappearing and the Process Is Invisible.

Three separate applications to remove land from the Agricultural Land Reserve in South Surrey are currently under review. Most residents have no idea. That is by design.

The Agricultural Land Commission's public notice process is technically compliant and functionally opaque. Notices are posted. Hearings are held. The public comment period is open. And the overwhelming majority of residents whose community is being permanently altered by these decisions never hear about them until the decision is made.

Three applications currently before the ALC would, if approved, remove a combined total of over sixty hectares of farmland from the Agricultural Land Reserve in South Surrey. The applications cite various grounds — drainage limitations, soil quality, proximity to existing development, the standard arguments that have been used to justify exclusions across the Lower Mainland for decades.

What they share, beyond their legal framing, is an outcome: land that was set aside for food production would become available for residential and commercial development. That land will not return to agricultural use. The decision, once made, is permanent.

The South Surrey community has a direct interest in these decisions that extends beyond abstract concern for farmland. Local agriculture contributes to food security, to the character of the region, to the water management of watersheds that directly affect residential areas. Removing it has consequences that outlast any individual development project.

The ALC process needs to reach communities more effectively than a posting on a government website. Municipalities should be required to notify residents within a meaningful radius of any ALR exclusion application. Councils should be required to take a formal public position. The stakes are too high for a process that relies on civic activists to do the work of informing the public.

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