What was the best land purchase you have ever made?

[Ron]

Actually I do have several CFO's around me and part of my "technically subdividable" parcels are within the minimum distance.
The operators of the CFO's are good people, respectful operators and I have noticed an odour probably less than 5 days a year due to injection or immediate incorporation (for good agronomics not to appease the neighbors) so I dont know why anybody would mind living near them.
I believe that at the present moment I need agreement from the CFO to subdivide? I can deal with that (the hog barns were there when I was a kid), but if the rules are changed so I have no option of subdivision in that area it would change my retirement/bailout plan considerably and I would have to fight it.
What about first parcel out in the MDS? Fragmented parcels?
I am not trying to pick a fight but this is going to affect a lot of people if it goes through and the current land value in central alberta is tied to acreages. I see the county council as retired landowners that want to prevent change and keep things as they were 20 years ago, I dont see any young people having influence on the decisions that are forced upon them.
If the current regulations were enforced properly I dont think any reasonable person would have a problem living in a MDS, the problem is there are rules with zero enforcement. Just a waste of paper. ie. incorporation of manure, just before BSE there was talk of soil testing before and after manure application to prevent groundwater contamination.
Custom operators that run commercial operations with farm fuel, farm plates, no safety inspections and no maximum hours of service are crazy.
The county has better places to look than limiting and lowering my property values.
Covered way to much here, it must be a sore spot. Sorry but acreage owners arent the only problem.

[coppertop]

Ron your county likely has completely
different rule than ours does. The
Agricultural Operations Practices Act
sets out the regulations for CFO's in
Alberta. Municipalities are required to
develop their own Land Use By-Laws and
Municipal Development Plan which will
indicate how many parcels may be
subdivided per quarter section of land.
Most municipalities allow one parcel,
the farmstead as an automatic
subdivision. Many are now not allowing
subdivision within the MDS of CFO's
because of the issues that both parties
face, conflicting land uses, trespassing
on property, ATV's, snow machines,
complaints about odor and dust etc. In
our municipality the CFO operators spend
hours each week dealing with frivilous
complaints from neighbours who do not
understand generally accepted farming
practices. CFO operators have provided
dust control for their neighbours, have
changed their silage haul routes and
drive miles out of their way to appease
complaining neighbours. This costs the
CFO operator a lot of money which
normally would not be necessary his
farmer neighbours don't complain about
the dust and the silage trucks ! As far
as councillors being retired people not
embracing change, I disagree with you
wholeheartedly. There is nothing
stopping young people from running for
municipal councils, in fact next year is
election year so maybe consider putting
your name on the ballot. Our county has
numerous leading edge developments, as
do many others. Any county that does not
embrace new ideas isn't going to be
viable for long. The taxes from farm
land and residential aren't the ones
that keep municipalities viable,
commercial assessment is the money maker
for municipalities and you do not
attract new commercial development by
being old fossils that don't embrace new
ideas !!! The Province has downloaded a
lot of things to rural municipalities
much of which is costly and requires
adhering to provincial legislation. It
is easy to criticize your local council,
but if you haven't walked in their shoes
perhaps you should attend a few council
meetings to see exactly what they deal
with on any given council agenda.
Our county deals with re-zoning
applications for land on every council
agenda, this might be for a recreational
development, a commercial development or
an industrial development such as a
class 1 land fill. With each
application comes reams of information
to read, and these old 'retired,
councillors as you put it' spend hours
going through the material before making
decisions. As with all land use
decisions, any changes to the land use
by-law must first go through a Public
Hearing where anyone from the public may
give their opinion .
I personally know numerous councillors
from across Alberta, I am willing to bet
that very few people who are young, like
I assume you are, would be willing to
work seven days a week, being on call to
the community from 6:00 AM to Midnight
daily, study thousands of pages of
documents monthly, drive up and down
roads on a daily basis, attend every
charity function in the community, and
the list goes on and on. Most of these
folks make less than $35,000 a year for
the time they spend as ' Boards of
Directors' making decisions in a multi
million dollar businesses. Much of what
they do is done voluntarily. I have a
great deal of respect for anyone who
will put their name on a ballot, go out
and knock on 1500 doors asking people
for their support, and then on election
day only have 35% of the eligible voters
bother to drive to the local community
hall and vote. Apathy elects most rural
councils !!!

[cakadu]

Hey coppertop. I appreciate your comments on what councillors do and it is a pretty thankless job for the most part. Having said that, no matter how flat you make a pancake, there are still two sides to it. The councillors is my area make WAY more than the amount you've stated and that is just as a base "salary". They earn a per diem for every meeting they attend etc. etc. so some of them make far more than most of us.

I am concerned about the number of acreages that have been "cut" out of the ag land around me. Heavens, with the amount of subdivision that has gone on, we could likely open a 7-11 at the end of the road. For example, on the 1/2 section beside us, the original owner took 5 acres out of each quarter for a 10 acre parcel smack in the middle of the two parcels. The south quarter is still farmed. The north quarter was kept intact until about 3 years ago when the follow that bought it sold it to one of his grandkids. That kid turned around and subdivided an acreage out of it, sold the remainder to his brother and now that has been sold to someone who is farming it as well as building a house.

In the subdivision applications, it is amazing how the seasonal creek turned into nothing more than a drainage ditch. It is far more than that - it is one of two wildlife corridors between the Red Deer and the Medicine (there I've given my county away)and that will likely now be severely impacted because of the fences, cattle and house.

There are always unintended consequences and I fully understand where the municipalities garner a lot of their tax dollars.

[coppertop]

Hi Linda, I am aware that some county
council's are paid a base salary plus
per diem, but that is not the norm in
across the province. The Alberta
Association of Municipal Districts and
Counties polls all their membership and
provides a detailed report on councilor
compensation. In my county councilors
are paid a per diem, for half day and
full day meetings, plus two days per
month for the time spent communicating
with ratepayers.
Again, if the public is not in favor of
their council being paid a monthly
salary plus a per diem they need to
speak out during election year. I
certainly know there are some 'hogs at
the trough' in municipalities, but those
folks need to be held in check by their
colleagues on council.
In our county we must get the approval
of council to attend any meeting or
function outside the regularly scheduled
council meetings and committee/board
meetings.
I have always felt that a good, honest,
hard working council is worth whatever
they are paid, a useless councilor that
only shows up for photo ops, and doesn't
do their homework etc. isn't worth
anything as far as representing their
ratepayers goes.

[Hopperbin]

Frank I think these guys got a little off topic thought off topic was just for the marketing forum haha. Were you asking how to make the good deals or were you asking about good deals?

[coppertop]

sorry if you thought we were off topic, I
was under the impression that the topic was
farm land and what good deals people had
made selling it. Land use issues are part
and parcel of farm land since all land in
Alberta is zoned agricultural until
rezoning takes place.

[per]

Spoken like a true politician. The bottom line is land is a good place to park money. Even when bought at the wrong time history has shown that patients will bring values up. (in reality I guess it just means our money is worth less) I bought a 1/4 that the neighbors bought @ 1200/ac from them for 600 (they traded for land close to them for same money). Payed 2000 for the 1/4 next to it a few years later and land here has since been trading between 2500 and 5000/ac. Nothing to do with "farm" values. Everything to do with living near a City and acreages being harder to get so it you have the money you buy a 1/4 instead of 3 acres. All land seems hard to pay for and was for my grandfather and dad as well. I am thankful that they jumped in though. Kinda shows that Copper was right on topic.

[FrankB]

Maybe a little off topic but very interesting for sure. Please keep the comments coming.

[coppertop]

Land is a good investment, and patience
is necessary in any business . I look
at businesses who stick their neck out
hoping someone will buy their product
and they have a dozen competitors in the
same community so they like to gamble as
much as farmers do !! I look at the
quarter sections of bush pasture around
here with a small bungalow on them, and
see what they are selling for, or at
least what the asking price is and know
that no-one interested in buying the
places is going to pay for it by farming
unless they are farming something that
likely isn't legal. The homes in Calgary
that have a mountain view are still
commanding a huge price, and not too
many years ago they were part of
someone's ranch. Likely land that
somebody's grandad homesteaded and
wondered what in heck he was doing
taking such a gamble !! Owning land is a
blessing that many of us don't really
appreciate, that is why they are going
to play Don't Fence me In at my funeral,
hopefully not in the near future !!!!!

[lcarduner]

I have seen many sides of the above Land Use discussion. I was involved with the ALR (agricultural land reserve) for a few years. This was/is the goverment agency in BC that regulates agricultural land. IMO, this agency has really preserved the land in BC for future generations, esp around larges cities like Vancouver where the land is the best and the pressure from population is undescribable.

I have also been the owner of an 'acerage' and witnessed first hand the issues the ranchers around me dealt with by other acerage owners who have no respect for farming. FIRES are my biggest pet peeve. People do not seem to understand the damage runaway fires can do - and many are started by a burn barrel on a small acerage!

I can understand why a farmer would want to subdivide off a non productive part of their property. I can also understand why someone would want to live in the sticks and not have more then 20 acres - or even less.

What I will never understand is why a person moves to the country and complains about farmers and their way of living - IMO - they should be just grateful that the people who feed the world share their land and lifestyle with them.

Maybe - before someone can purchase an acerage they should have to go to living-in-the-sticks-101 and learn to appreciate the lifestyle or stay in the city. LOL!