Manitoba Agriculture is formally opposed to annexation plans involving Steinbach and Hanover. Steinbach is looking to annex approximately 7,300 acres of farmland to the west and north of the city.

Sheri Grift is Land Use Planning Specialist with Manitoba Agriculture. She says of the 7,300 acres, more than 5,000 is considered prime agricultural land.

Further to that, she says agricultural producers with farmland within the annexed area would be assessed at a higher rate than their current RM of Hanover assessment. Farmland values are based on market values, which are influenced by such things as proximity to urban centres. Grift says it is likely that the market value of these lands will increase once being included within Steinbach's boundaries.

Grift says since 2005, Manitoba Agriculture has informed Hanover that the municipality may not have a sufficient land base to support its existing livestock operations. Using 2011 Census inventories for poultry and livestock, Grift says it has been determined that Hanover has a significant soil phosphorous surplus. She notes the province requires that all new or expanding livestock operations within Hanover must have access to the entire land base necessary to balance phosphorous.

"As that land is developed for urban uses it will be removed from agricultural production," explains Grift. "Which actually decreases the land base available for livestock operations to use for manure application to growing crops."

Grift says another concern of Manitoba Agriculture is how this proposed annexation will impact a farmer's desire to expand an operation. She says the expanding separation distance requirement that would accompany the boundary expansion for Steinbach would result in separation distances between these livestock operations and the town boundaries that are less than the minimum distances required in the Provincial Planning Regulation. Grift adds the ability of these agricultural producers to expand, diversify or rebuild their livestock operations in the future could be compromised.

"We have certainly encouraged, both in our original comment in March of 2016 and also at the Municipal Board hearing that the scale of the annexation be scaled back," says Grift. "We haven't specified which lands that should include or anything, but just our recommendation is that it be revisited and in fact scaled back from the proposed seventy-three hundred acres."

The Municipal Board has not announced when it will render a decision.

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KAP Opposed To Steinbach Annexation Plan