At the urging of Mayor Peter Jones, North Saanich is looking into establishing a 5,000 square foot food hub and 10,000 square foot greenhouse on district land.
The project would help local farmers by providing a processing facility for them to use, as well as a greenhouse they could rent out space in.
District staff got the green light on June 3 to start the process of figuring to what that would look like and what the cost would be after a 6 to 1 vote of council on a motion brought by Jones.
Because it is such early stages, Jones was not able to give any cost estimate, but did say a comparable facility built in Lumby cost roughly $2 million.
Provincial funding could be available for this type of project. Jones said the goal would also be to try to work with neighbouring districts such as Sidney and Central Saanich on funding.
The only dissenter was Coun. Jack McClintock, who argued the district should not be getting involved in agriculture because he says that could create unfair competition and waste money.
“Getting into the agriculture business is just a hole to place taxpayer’s money,” he said.
