Request to sever surplus lot draw support from farmers

A proposed change to land use rules in Clearview Township would allow farmers to sever a surplus dwelling even if they don’t own abutting lands.
A public meeting was held March 8 for an Official Plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment application filed by Jim and Martha Patton.
The Pattons operate an Everett-based broiler chicken breeding and cash crop operation, and own or rent farmland in four area townships, including Clearview where they own five parcels.
The topic prompted area farmers to comment, mostly in favour, of allowing for the severance of surplus dwelling lots with a habitable farmhouse, that could then be sold off.
Working on behalf of the Pattons planner Jamie Robinson, of MHBC Planning, said the amendment would facilitate a consent application to allow for a surplus dwelling application.
He said Clearview’s Official Plan, was approved in 2002 and since then, there have been significant changes to provincial policy, which are reflected in the County of Simcoe Official Plan, approved in 2018. Both support surplus farm dwelling severances, as long as no future residential uses are permitted on the retained parcel of farmland.
What happens is that as farmers expand and purchase parcels of land, they may include existing dwellings.
“These applications are also designed so that farmers don’t need to be landlords and it allows for the dwelling to be maintained,” said Robinson.
The Pattons have severed a surplus dwelling in Essa Township and are working on one in Adjala-Tosorontio.
“If this wasn’t allowed, you can imagine, we would have a collection of houses,” Martha told The Echo. “Yes, we don’t want to be landlords. You can appreciate how a rented house is treated versus an owned property so we don’t want to see these houses go to waste or be destroyed.”
She said they do have homes that they rent and have had good experiences with tenants but even then, it is a lot of work to manage and not an integral part of their large farming operation.
“To us, it doesn’t make sense that this isn’t allowed to happen because you take that house off of the farm and you are going to make money off of it tax-wise as a residence,” she said.
Brian Dunlop, of Dunlogon Farms, wrote in support of the application.
“Farmers typically do not want to be landlords of residential housing,” wrote Dunlop. “Because we have not been able to sever I have demolished three houses in Clearview Township since 2008. These houses all could have been severed, all could have had improvements, all would have generated tax dollars for the township.”
Dunlop said currently, the only other option really is to rent, because insurance companies frown upon a house sitting vacant.
“We’re paying tax and insurance on those building, so that’s where I see the value in demolishing them if we can’t sever them off,” Dunlop told The Echo, adding that the result is that he gets a few more acres to farm.
He sees pros and cons to allowing severances. In the pro column, the sale of the home offsets the farmer’s cost of purchasing farm properties, plus the municipality gets revenue from increased assessment and building permits as the new owners renovate the home. The cons are that it limits the possibility for homes for future generations of farmers and could result in compatibility issues between the residents of the severed lots and existing farm operations.
He said the goal should be to keep lands zoned agricultural in the hands of farmers.
“We don’t want to encourage the urban centre to come up and buy all our farms and start chopping everything up,” said Dunlop.
“We see this all the time when you get non-ag living in the ag sector, they’re complaining about odour, noise, hours of operation and dust. They have to remember the urban centre decided to move out into the agriculture community and that’s what happens in the agriculture community.”
“If there happens to be a higher value home on the property, farmers are typically not able to buy the land,” wrote Andrew and John Beattie. “Too much value is placed on the home therefore the land is purchased by a non farmer.” They say, the owner will rent out the land but that land does not receive the same improvements as farmer-owned lands when it comes to fertilizer and tiling, etc…
“Clearview says it’s a farm community. Changing these rules would be something the township could actually do to support them,” said the Beatties.
Wayne Goodfellow wrote in to say that the current Official Plan policies are flawed and force the merging of farming properties, which is discriminatory to farmers.
Those in opposition commented that allowing for severances on single parcels would break up smaller farm properties, ones that could be used as hobby farms or vegetable crops.