A RURAL RESOURCE VIEW: Protecting Our Legacy

--Glenn K. Roberts, MCIP

Today, more than perhaps any other period in Atlantic Canada's history, the region's rural resource lands are coming under increased levels of pressure from non resource based land uses, particularly residential (both year-round and seasonal) and industrial development.

As the national and provincial economies grow and prosper, growth also occurs in many of the economic sectors -housing starts increase, employment level rise, there is more money available for purchases, etc.

However, as the economy grows, so, too, do costs, ultimately translating into elevated costs for services and products, including land. As a consequence, more and more people and businesses are moving from the urban centres into the surrounding rural areas, where many of the costs are significantly lower. In many areas, the rural resource lands of Atlantic Canada - its forests, wetlands, watercourses, and agricultural lands are being subjected to encroachment on a number of fronts: strip development along rural roads, cottage lot subdivisions along the shores and watercourses, large scale residential subdivisions on former farmlands, and "satellite" industrial complexes relocating to the rural areas. These developments are all having a significant and, in many instances, negative impact on the use and viability of the surrounding resource lands.

In addition to the loss of valuable resource land, this phenomenon also creates a number of other problems -- conflicts between rural property owners and newly arrived ex-urbanites with respect to farm practices; disruption or loss of wildlife habitat; environmental impacts associated with altered surface drainage patterns, lowered and sometimes polluted water tables, increased sewage, altered stream flows and the like; increased property values; detrimental impacts on local landscape features; public safety concerns associated with increased numbers of highway accesses; lost recreational opportunities; increased demand for services, elevated taxes, as well as a host of others.

All of the above place a significant stress on the future of the rural resource areas. While it is often argued that the rural people bring these misfortunes on themselves by selling their land to ex-urbanites or non-resource based industries, it is not always a question of individual choice. Once non-resource based land uses get a toehold in a rural area, it is often not too long before a "domino-effect" begins, and adjacent resource lands are converted to other non-resource-based uses. The net result is that, as these lands are fragmented further and further the very viability and sustainability of the remaining resource lands is challenged. In many instances, their weakened viability results in their being sold for non-resource use. As a consequence, the value of these former resource lands to the provincial and local economies, from a resource management perspective, is lost. In some areas, it becomes a "catch22" situation, whereby the fragmentation of the rural land development pattern seems to encourage increased urban sprawl, as more and more former rural resource land is put on the market.

Many provincial and local governments are now beginning to appreciate the negative impact that the loss of rural resource lands has on, not only the local and provincial economies, but also on the character and quality of life in the rural areas. Governments are now attempting to mitigate that negative impact. The zoning of large areas of rural land for resource use, with no or little non-resource based growth permitted, is a planning tool being examined by both provincial and rural municipal governments. The development of "special planning areas" around urban centres, to regulate urban expansion into the surrounding rural areas is also being considered in many areas. Other development control methodologies, such as transfer of development rights, comprehensive resource land management plans, farmland preserves, and similar devices are also being looked at positively.

Whatever the means selected and ultimately implemented to regulate the level and pace of the urbanization of the rural areas, and to mitigate its negative impact, the need to do so has never been so critical as now. Like resource lands the world over, Atlantic Canada's resources lands face an uncertain future. The threats of global warming and other climatic and environmental trends are real. Surely it is in our own best interests to help ensure the viability and long term sustainability of our resource lands by managing them wisely.

Glenn Roberts is a planner with the Department of Comnunity Affairs and Attorney General, Prince Edward Island. He can be reached at gkroberts@gov.pe.ca

Atlantic Planners Institute

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