You Can Help Save the Farmland at the Old Federal Government “Cloverdale Site” on the Langley Border

If you’ve been down 192nd Street between Colebrook Road and 36th Avenue, you would see farmland with Government of Canada and do not trespass signs. This site was a former radio monitoring site for the government, in service until 2018. This radio monitoring required a significant amount of land as some antennas consist of a tall tower and buried cable. This meant that the surface was farmable. The federal government has contracted with a family that actively farms the land for produce since the 1980s. For more information, please check out the site Beautiful Brookswood.

Location of Cloverdale Site. Select map to enlarge.

Since the federal government decommissioned the site, it is now looking to sell it. Unfortunately, because this was federal government land, it could not be included in the Agricultural Land Reserve. Once the federal government sells the site, this active farmland will likely be turned into an office park or industrial area as the land is regionally zoned for “mixed employment” use.

Communication building that was onsite until 2005. Source: Beautiful Brookswood

The Metro Vancouver Regional District’s Agricultural Advisory Committee passed the following motion as they are concerned:

That the Metro Vancouver Agricultural Advisory Committee forward a letter to the Regional Planning Committee expressing: 1) its concern and opposition to the property known as Heppell’s Potato Farm, located between 36 and 42 Avenues and between 192 and 196 Streets in Surrey, currently owned by the Federal Government, being removed from active farming and sold; 2) its support for the property to be preserved as farmland, now and into the future; and 3) that the Agricultural Land Commission be requested to consider its inclusion into the Agricultural Land Reserve.

If you support preserving this site as farmland, please sign this official petition at https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4128. This petition is sponsored by John Aldag, the MP for Cloverdale-Langley City, so it carries some weight.

To learn more about the site, please site Beautiful Brookswood.