spacer_10.GIF (49 bytes)


PART 4
LAND USE DESIGNATIONS

Statutes, regulations and government policy manuals in British Columbia contain many designations for the administration and governance of land use.

Some designations are common and used frequently, while others are seldom used and almost forgotten. There are thousands of land use designations already recorded on the provincial Crown land base. Many are overlapping, and are a legacy of the decision-making that has occurred over many decades. There is no single, consolidated registry for Crown land designations, as there is for private land in the Land Title Office. However, there are a number of registries and information systems where designation information may be found. For example, the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks manages the Crown Land Registry Information System, which includes survey information, and information on designations such as Land Act reserves, parks and provincial forests. The Ministry of Forests has a forest atlas system which records Forest Act and Forest Practices Code designations. Other designations are recorded in systems kept by the individual agencies responsible for managing the designation. Finding out the exact location and status of all the land designations for a given area can be a difficult exercise.

One purpose of this Guide is to explain what these designations are for, and how they may be used, so that the full palette of designations may become better known. Those involved in land use planning may look to these designations when considering specific recommendations for a planning area. Doing so may ensure that distinct areas of land are managed under known rules, so that the priorities and objectives of strategic land use plans may be realized.

Before the land and resource management planning processes of the 1990s, some agencies used their designation powers to protect their mandates and promote their programs and interests. This often occurred without public consultation, and sometimes without inter-agency or private sector consultation as well. In effect, these designation decisions were a means of land use planning, although historically they were made on an ad hoc basis in the absence of a regional or integrated management perspective. Today, land use designations are used more as a means of implementing land use plans. For example, provincial park or forest land reserve designations more commonly flow out of regional or sub-regional planning processes described in Part 1 of the Guide.

There are many different reasons for and functions served by existing land use designations; however, the main purpose of land use designations is to establish a priority objective for certain areas of land.

For example, there are designations which establish priorities for forestry, agriculture, water conservation, wildlife habitat and other priority uses. There are also designations which do not affect land use activities per se, but serve a purpose relating to the administration of legislation. For example, a timber supply area is not exclusively for timber extraction, but identifies an administrative unit for determining the rate of logging for that area, which forms the basis for apportioning rights to harvest timber under the Forest Act. Some designations, such as provincial forests, allow for multiple land uses, while others, such as the agricultural land reserve, are more restrictive.

There is also a gradation in the intended geographic scope of various designations. Some designations are purposely designed for smaller, distinct areas, while others cover broad areas. Some designations are tailored for specific land uses, such as provincial parks, ecological reserves or recreation sites.

Decisions on land use designations may be made at many different levels: some by the Legislature or Parliament, some by Cabinet, some by local-level resource management officials. Designations are also made in various ways: by an act of the legislature, an Order-in-Council of Cabinet, an order of certain administrative officials, or simply by designations or notations on maps kept in agency offices. Generally, the more significant the impact of a designation on social, economic or environmental matters, the more senior the authority required to make the designation.

There are many possible ways to sort, discuss or organize all the land use designations available in British Columbia. This Guide has sorted them mostly according to the primary purpose of the designation. Discussed below are:

  • administrative designations for natural resource management;
  • designations for parks, recreation and protection;
  • designations for wildlife;
  • designations for cultural heritage; and,
  • designations for community water supply.

All of the land use designations discussed in this section of the Guide are summarized in a table at the end of Part 4.

 

09/29/06