Agriculture (A1) Zone Update

Since the 2006 adoption of the Agriculture (A1) Zone, many changes have been made to Agricultural Land Commission legislation to support farmers throughout British Columbia. As a result, the A1 zone needs to be amended so that the City’s zoning regulations and current provincial legislation are consistent. Given the number of provincial legislative changes, the recently adopted Delta Agricultural Plan also identified updating the A1 zone as an important step to strengthen farming.

Some recent changes to Provincial policies and legislation which are proposed to be included in Delta’s amended A1 zone include:

• Increased residential flexibility in the Agricultural Land Reserve in order to allow small accessory dwelling units and secondary suites;
• Increased floor area for farm houses;
• Allowing additional agri-tourism activities;
• Allowing distilleries, meaderies, cideries and wineries as permitted types of on-farm alcohol production facilities;
• Updated guidelines regarding production and processing of cannabis on farms;
• Including products coming from a cooperative association to count as on-farm inputs to processing, production, composting and retail sales; and
• Allowing up to 10 gatherings per year on a property assessed as a farm. Owners would be required to maintain a log of events.

Along with incorporating changes to better align with Provincial legislation, Delta is also reviewing the organization of the A1 zone and clarifying existing regulations. For more information, please see a summary of the changes in the "Key Documents" section.