What was the best land purchase you have ever made?

[FrankB]

I am interested in farmland and real estate and love to hear how guys made some great deals that worked out well...

Share them here if you have a good one?

[coppertop]

The best deals in my area are the
quarters of land that people bought
twenty years ago, and are now
subdividing them into country
residential parcels and selling each one
for triple the price they paid for the
land. I don't agree with this practice
and our municipality is very lax in
their land use planning as far as
protecting better agricultural land but
some of people in the community are
making a killing, or were until things
slowed down. There is a glut of acreages
on the market here now.

[FrankB]

coppertop where abouts do you live. Here in Southwestern Ontario we have very strict rules designed to prevent what is happening around you. My family has 200 acres and the only way I can build on the 200 is if we severe 100 acres. Sounds as though new rules are needed.

[coppertop]

I am in west central Alberta. The
resource based economy in our
municipality has put pressure on
agriculture land by people wanting to
live in a rural setting but not on a
farm. This has happened to the
detriment of the livestock producers who
are now dealing with trespassing,
complaints about generally accepted
farming practices such as spreading
manure, hauling silage and weaning
calves. The conflict between the two
landuses is great, plus the added
pressure on the environment due to
numerous on site sewage systems, some
that have already failed, plus the
number of water wells in the area. I
agree that people need a choice in where
they want to live but if we aren't going
to protect the better agricultural land
and the right to farm by our existing
producers then agriculture really isn't
a valued industry.
As you may have notices, I am passionate
about this and all land use issues.

[FrankB]

I couldnt agree with you more. The same thing is happening here. City people move to rural communities thinking that they have the right to ask for these changes. Its quite disgusting that our Gov't allows this to happen. Nothing pisses me off more then some idiot trespassing, be it for hunting, growing pot etc. They damage crops and have little or no regard for other peoples property. Keep up with the passion, it becomes a major problem when people become complacent and lose the passion.

[coppertop]

I am a municipal councillor, and have
voted against development adjacent to
large livestock operations due to the
potential for conflict. People don't
understand that the silage wagon will
start going by their nice little house
in the country every morning at 6:00,
and they will smell silage all day in
the crisp winter air. They don't realize
that the farmer has to follow rules in
Alberta with respect to spreading
manure, and those rules include his
being allowed to spread up to the
property line if he intends on
incorporating the manure. I get calls
from people complaining about the dust
along a silage haul, and those calls are
never from a farmer, always from someone
who moved to the country from town and
didn't understand what sort of
activities go on in a rural setting. Our
county hands out a Rural Living Guide
with every subdivision, and it clearly
states the obvious such as: If you live
on an acreage you may need to own a
tractor because you are NOT going to
automatically be plowed out in a
snowstorm. It also deals with the dogs
running at large issue, although I am
afraid that sometimes falls on deaf
ears. At our Municipal Planning
Commission meetings we hear all about
conflicts between neighbours, mainly due
to dogs running at large bothering
livesstock. The odd time the neighbours
don't like each other because one of
them ran off with the neighbours wife,
but those situations aren't as prevalent
as the dogs running at large. LOL !!!!!

[shortround]

The opportunity to sell your land for development is really only an option in a few spots close to cities and towns...

As farms get bigger, I see fewer rural folks as most of the houses are being bulldozed. I think we should allow some splitting off of the homes with the land to try and keep the rural population up in certain areas?

[coppertop]

I have never objected to the farmer
taking out his farmstead as an acreage.
In our municipality the farmstead parcel
can be no more than 15 acres, which
allows the person to have some livestock
if they wish.
This coming week our Agricultural
Service Board is going to be discussing
a recommendation to council which will
see no acreage development allowed
within the Minimum Distance Separation
from any confined feeding operation. It
is difficult to explain to some
councillors who have an urban background
and don't understand that allowing
acreages near feedlots, hog barns,
dairies etc. only creates conflicting
situations, and hampers the farmers
right to be able to carry out normal
operations.

[Ron]

"This coming week our Agricultural
Service Board is going to be discussing
a recommendation to council which will
see no acreage development allowed
within the Minimum Distance Separation
from any confined feeding operation."

As a youngerish farmer I have always thought that if worse comes to worse I can bail myself out by subdividing a piece and generating cashflow. Whether to keep farming seriously or hobby farm and work off-farm year round I was not sure.

If you stop subdivision within boundaries of CFO's I will have to fight any new CFO to the bitter end. Even though they buy my feed grains and I buy manure it would drop my land value significantly if they encroached onto my subdividable area.

Now that I think about it I better apply to subdivide any potential sites now before you change the regs.

I assume the county councillors (and anybody else in the know, er, I mean with forsight) have already done this for themselves over the past couple years?

[coppertop]

Actually, Ron on our council no-one has
subdivided any land. With respect to not
allowing acreages within the setback of
a CFO, if you don't have any CFO's near
you then you don't have a problem at
this time.
How many people to you know that would
want to live within the Minimum Distance
Setback of a CFO, eg acreage owners ?
The MDS is considered to be the area
necessary for the least impact of odor
from a CFO. Personally, I don't know
anyone who would want to live that close
to a hog barn, or other CFO with the
exception of perhaps a poultry
operation. In the days where people are
building million dollar houses on their
acreages it is difficult to understand
why anyone would want to put that
investment beside an operation where
there would be significant odor, dust,
manure spreading etc., that is why I
support no acreage development within
the MDS of existing CFO's. They need to
be able to operate and expand without
being hampered by country residential
parcels located too close. These CFO's
also include multi species operations
such as Hutterite Colonies.