KPU, City of Langley Collaborate to Develop Urban Agriculture beneath BC Hydro Lines

South Langley power corridor to be used as farmland thanks in part to Institute for Sustainable Food Systems
Joseph Keller, Web Editor

KPU’s Institute for Sustainable Food Systems is working with the City of Langley and Metro Vancouver regional authority to develop an underutilised powerline corridor into the first urban agriculture project of its kind.

Project organisers have recently wrapped up the first steps of a planning process that will see the 23 acres of land below the South Langley powerlines transformed into a fully functional urban farm to act as a sustainable food source for the community. The Institute for Sustainable Food Systems was contracted and funded by Metro Vancouver to oversee the planning process, for which the City of Langley will be considered the primary benefactor.

“We think that there’s good potential for food production because it’s a space that it’s underutilized right now, but is also not a place where other development can happen,” says Emily Hansen, a research associate for the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems.

In addition to providing the community with a source of local food production, Hansen says the project will also help enhance the land’s ecological capacity by creating wildlife habitats.

While the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems has been looking at other examples of urban farms for lessons that can be applied to their project, the idea of putting a farm under a powerline corridor has never been tried before. This presents a series of unique problems to be worked out. Since the land would primarily be purposed for hydro infrastructure, there would be limits on the types of vegetation that could be planted and infrastructure that could be built to grow food. Maintaining access to the hydro equipment would be a constant priority.

Hansen says that getting water and electricity to the farming equipment without interfering with the power lines is possible, but carries some inherent limitations.

“We’re still working on figuring out … exactly what kind of scale of production can fit into that space given the restrictions that we face, but that’s all part of the process,” she says.

While the farms present a clear opportunity for KPU agriculture students to learn while working on such a facility, project organisers have not yet created such a partnership. In addition to KPU, several other educational institutions in the area have expressed interest in using the site for educational opportunities.

“With educational organisations like Kwantlen, we want to know if there are any groups or programs that could benefit from having access to the site,” says Hansen. “So during the planning process we’ll be reaching out to and engaging with those partners.”

The first few months of the project’s planning phase have been spent consulting with local stakeholders. In addition to the City of Langley and Metro Vancouver, project organizers have been in contact with BC Hydro, the company operating the power lines. Other stakeholders include the Langley School Board, Fraser Health, and the Agricultural Land Commission.

Another key stakeholder that needed to be consulted is the local public. To that end, the Institute held a community open house to educate residents about the project and to seek feedback. Hansen says that there were initially worries from locals who already use the space as a park and walkway that the space would no longer be accessible for such purposes. Fortunately, the area will still be open and accessible to the public.

“Those are some of the things that we’ll really be looking at going forward—how to address those concerns and make sure that it’s not a project that will have any negative impact on the community that it’s imbedded in,” says Hansen. “I think there’s a challenge to face in keeping the community involved and making sure that we address concerns along the way, because in the end, community buy-in is the only way that the project is going to fly.”