BALDERSON — Call it a cautionary tale and a stark illustration of how farmers can be straitjacketed by new development — even a single house — encroaching on their land and fomenting bad blood with their newly arrived urbanite neighbours.
Sheep farmers Mike and Kyla Truelove say their local municipality issued and then revoked their building permit for a new sheep barn after they already poured the footings. The Trueloves say that Tay Valley Township in Lanark County reneged on their building permit to favour a couple from Montreal who applied to build a house directly across from the Truelove farmstead on Keays Road. The Trueloves got their permit to build a barn in August 2022. They say that the Montreal couple applied a few months later and township officials told them it was approved in December 2022. The township yanked the barn’s permit in April 2023 and a day later also pulled the permit for a previously approved horse barn farther away on the Truelove property.
Minimum distance separation rules mean the new house is too close to the proposed sheep and horse barns. The Trueloves argue that they were here first and got their permits first. The house project across the road, however, is nearing completion, though not yet occupied.
The Trueloves say the township revoked their sheep barn building permit on the excuse that it lacked a nutrient management strategy, although the issuing building official didn’t ask for one. They have about 30 sheep and planned to ramp up to 120 ewes on about 200 acres.
Township chief administrative officer Amanda Mabo confirmed that the Trueloves’ building permits were revoked, adding that she couldn’t say much more because the matter is in litigation. “What I can say is that the permits were revoked because they didn’t meet all the requirements.”
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