Robin Friesen and Jordan Maynard rented the farm in Vancouver’s Southlands neighbourhood that they currently call home with the explicit intention of farming there.
The couple spent the winter discussing what crops they wanted to plant and what strategies they would employ for fertilizing the soil. Eventually, they settled on chickens, which could be rotated around the grounds to provide a natural fertilizer, as well as a steady supply of eggs.
That’s when the trouble started.
“We had a neighbour who didn’t enjoy waking up to a rooster,” Friesen said. “They called the bylaw officer, and the bylaw officer came down here and told us we couldn’t have a rooster and we can only have four hens.”
The problem? Even though the farm is part of the province’s Agricultural Land Reserve, which protects the “right to farm” for its occupants, that provincial law is superceded by the Vancouver Charter, which means the city’s bylaws regarding chickens still apply.
“Unfortunately, there is a gap in the Southlands plan,” Friesen said.
The plan for the neighbourhood, which the city adopted in 1988, lays out Vancouver’s vision for the only remaining farmland within its borders. Part of the plan, according to Friesen and Maynard, called for protecting the right to farm for Southlands residents, but the bylaw that would have enabled that protection was never approved by the city council.
“I think it goes against everything that the city says they’re trying for,” Friesen said. “It’s not very green.”
Maynard said he and Friesen have taken their concerns to city council, and found some councillors receptive to their message that they should be allowed to keep their chickens and their rooster, Pepper, who they describe as equal parts pet and farm animal.
For now, the 150 hens that live on the property are safe, and Pepper is living on a nearby farm temporarily in order to accommodate the neighbours. The city has told Friesen and Maynard that they can have additional time to relocate their chickens, but unless council changes the rules, the birds will have to be moved eventually.
Changing city bylaws to allow the couple to keep their chickens would be an opportunity to make good on the promise of the Agricultural Land Reserve as a place to “grow food, but also grow farmers,” Maynard said.
Southlands isn’t really suited to large-scale farming practices, Friesen said.
“It’s not really suitable for large-scale farming. It’s suitable for small farms, which actually could become the gem of Vancouver,” she said. “I don’t know that there’s any other city in North America that has that potential, to have right in its midst beautiful, thriving, small-scale farms on incredibly fertile soil.”
Unless the city changes its rules, however, that potential Friesen sees will go unrealized.
With files from CTV Vancouver's Julie Nolin
