Shortage looms: Crunch could come in a decade, forum told
Jim Jamieson
Province
The Greater Vancouver Regional District could run out of usable industrial land by the end of the next decade, hobbling the local economy and discouraging business investment, a forum on the region’s future was told yesterday.
And the scarcity will only push land prices even higher.
Ron Bagan, managing director of Western Canada, Colliers International commercial real-estate company, told a group of stakeholders at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue that statistics from a new GVRD study indicates an industrial land crunch looms 12 to 14 years away, but could come in a decade if the situation isn’t addressed.
The study showed there are 2,775 hectares of land not being used for industrial purposes, but designated for future industrial development. But Bagan ran the audience through a process of elimination whereby the number was quickly reduced to about 1,415 hectares.
“It’s not at a crisis stage yet, but there is a serious shortage coming in terms of industrial land,” he said. “We’ve got to decide where we want this development to be and how we’re going to co-ordinate the infrastructure.”
Bagan cited the example of Vernon-based Kal Tire, Canada’s largest tire distributor, which opted to build a 250,000-square-foot warehouse on a 12-hectare site in Chilliwack instead of Surrey because land was about $1.25 million per hectare less and development costs were about $1.5 million less.
It was clear following a question and answer session with attendees that a solution will have to balance maintaining a sustainable, livable region with making more land available to the market. One suggestion was increasing density on current land. But a particular point of controversy was whether some of the shortfall should come out of the Agricultural Land Reserve.
Rob Cruickshank, president of the B.C. Technology Industries Association, called on all levels of government to get involved.
“It’s great to talk about the land requirements, but if we haven’t created the strategy to get us there so we know what type of industry is going to use that land, it’s for naught,” he said.
© The Vancouver Province 2006