Prince George making moves to capitalize on Fairview port

Earlier this week we mentioned plans afoot in Prince George to make use of land surrounding the airport in that city, with a desire to set up Light Industrial development and take advantage of the soon to be operating (well once the dust settles on local north coast issues we guess) Fairview container port.

The Prince George Citizen posted a story to its website today that shows that those plans are certainly moving ahead. A massive light industrial development consisting of 900 hectares is in the planning stages, with hopes to be developed in time as those first containers load onto a CN train for desitinations east.

It will no doubt provide a spark to the Prince George economy, providing jobs and tax revenues for that city.

Considering the recent concern over the few tax generating industries in Prince Rupert, perhaps we could take a page out of the Prince George planning book. That city’s government and local business community are certainly finding ways to make the best out of the port located some eight hours away!

Surely our local government and business interests can soon find ways to capitalize on the port that is certainly much closer in geography. We keep hearing the talk that the jobs are coming, but more than a few of them seem to be getting directed eight hours inland.

Credit Prince George with the foresight, vision and ability to get the job done, it seems that they are quite a bit ahead of the curve when it comes to making the best of the potential of the Fairview port.

Airport project planned
MARK NIELSEN
Citizen staff
(News) Saturday, 28 April 2007, 06:00 PST

A massive light industrial development is in the works for land west of the Prince George Airport.

Henry Rempel, a businessman based in New Westminster who owns apartment buildings and townhouses in Prince George, is heading an effort to assemble 900 hectares in the area and has hired L&M Engineering of Prince George to guide the venture over the bureaucratic hurdles.
The idea is to provide locations for the business spinoffs expected to emerge once the Prince Rupert container terminal, the airport runway extension and the CN Rail transload operation and intermodal rail terminal are completed.

The venture will provide a major boost to the city's economy if it goes ahead, said Prince George Chamber of Commerce president Garth Frizzell, particularly combined with the three other projects.

"People have to see (Prince George) as a credible centre of transportation if they're going to start locating businesses here and this will add another piece to the puzzle," he said. "A pretty central piece, too."

Initiatives Prince George president Gerry Offet said it will provide a 10-to-20 year supply of "very-high-quality" light-industrial land.

"This is planning for the future and I think it's good to see a private source is going through the expense of getting the land ready for development (as opposed to the city)," Offet said.

The venture will also have a significant impact on the city's transportation network. Plans drafted by L&M Engineering call for extending Boundary Road in the Danson industrial area across the Fraser River so Highway 97 South is connected with Highway 16 West and trucks carrying dangerous goods can bypass the city.

Heather Oland, a planner at L&M, said the first phase of development will likely occur northwest of the airport, near where the airport has plans for additional hangars, and consist of aviation and logistics-related businesses.

However, some major steps need to be completed first, beginning with winning approval from the Agricultural Land Commission for an application to exclude about 550 hectares of Crown land currently designated agricultural.

Advertising and notification of neighbouring landowners began today and the application will be submitted to city hall by as early as May 7 -- all the land is within city boundaries. City council will then have 90 days to makes its views known to the ALC's three-member north panel, which will make a final decision.

Getting the land out of the ALR should not be an issue, Oland said, because it's of marginal agricultural value and there has been a net gain of agricultural land in B.C. over the years, particularly in the North.

Agriculture and Lands Minister and Prince George North MLA Pat Bell said it would not be appropriate for him to comment on the specific application because the ALC is a quasi-judicial body at arm's-length from the government. However, he said the ALC has had a history of allowing exclusions for marginal land.

It was about this time last year that city council turned down a request to make a "community-based" application to the ALC in part because a study commissioned by Initiatives Prince George on regional container market opportunities had not yet been completed and CN Rail's plans for the First Avenue yard were not clear.

That study has since been completed and CN Rail announced last month it will spend $20 million on an intermodal yard at the First Avenue yard, centred on an 84,000-square-foot warehouse with 10 acres of outside storage.

The aim is to have it ready by this fall to coincide with completion of the first phase of the container terminal at the Port of Prince Rupert.

Work on the airport runway extension, which would make it long enough to handle large cargo jets, was supposed to have started this month but will be delayed by as much as a year because federal bureaucrats decided a consultant should review the project's feasibility.

The 900 hectares will increase the amount of industrial land within city limits by about 50 per cent, but it's light industrial land, Oland stressed.

"It's clean type of industry, so it's not something that would be impacting the airshed," she said.
Rempel declined to comment, saying he preferred to let L&M do the talking for him.