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What Does This Mean?
Why Is This Important?
How Are We Doing?
Taking Responsibility
- What You Can Do
We Must All Be
Accountable – Improving Trees, Parks & Natural
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What Does This Mean?
Agricultural land
use is tracked by calculating the total hectares
of land designated Agricultural in the City of
London Official Plan. The Agricultural land use
designation is applied to lands outside of the
settlement areas (outside the urban growth
boundary and rural settlement areas), where
agriculture and farm-related activities are the
predominant land use. In addition to productive
farmland the agricultural area includes lands of
lesser or marginal value for crop production as
well as woodlots and other natural features.
Why Is This Important?
It is important that
we recognize the contribution of the
agricultural industry and land resource to
London’s economy, heritage and quality of life.
The highly productive land that supports this
industry is a significant non-renewable resource
for the City of London and is made up of a mix
of field crop production, dairy and livestock
operations and small pockets of fruit and
vegetable production. It is therefore necessary
to conserve agricultural land, protect the
viability of farming and promote a better public
understanding of the importance and needs of
agriculture.
Allowing non-farm related uses in rural areas
may constrain agricultural practices, fragment
land ownership, inflate agricultural land prices
and property tax burdens on farmers, putting
pressure on them to sell productive land and
contribute to land use compatibility problems.
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How Are We Doing?
Source: City
of London, Planning Department (Jan. 2005)
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Performance Trend
Staying the Same
The amount of Agriculturally
designated land in the Official Plan has
remained relatively unchanged over the past 5
years. This is due to the fact that all
development is directed to occur within the
Urban Growth Boundary and Rural Settlement
Areas.
Taking Responsibility – What You Can Do
-
Read
the
Citizen's Guide to the Land Use Planning System
in Ontario, produced by the Ministry of
Municipal Affairs and Housing.
-
Join
one of the foodland preservation groups, or your
local naturalist club (through the
Federation of Ontario Naturalists)
-
Encourage municipalities to support the ongoing
vitality of existing rural settlement areas by
directing rural development to these settlement
areas, rather than permitting scattered
development.
-
Support local farm operations by purchasing
local produce.
We Must All Be
Accountable – Improving Urban Planning
- Find Out More
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