Another Richmond farm will soon be gone – but, as a consolation, many of the berry bushes from the property have been relocated to the KPU Farm School.
A blueberry farm in a designated industrial area in Ironwood – on No. 5 Road just south of Steveston Highway – will soon be developed into a business park with 13 stratified warehouse units.
But the owners of the property, before paving it over, wanted to relocate the hundreds of six-foot-high bushes that have been growing on the property.
This was when the City of Richmond connected the developer, Lucida Development, to KPU Farm School program manager Daniel Garfinkel asking if he and his students would have any use for them.
Last week, dozens of students and community volunteers were digging the bushes out and 150 were trucked off to the farm school near London Landing.
Other bushes were taken by Richmond residents that day and in the days following.
Garfinkel said he’s of two minds about the project – on the one hand, he’s sad another farm is being lost; on the other hand, he’s pleased that the owners wanted to save the blueberry bushes.
“When you have agricultural land … engulfed in high-value development potential, agricultural land usually loses,” Garfinkel said.
“I give these developers a lot of credit because they’re doing what a lot of developers do not do,” he added.
TX Contracting, which wanted to support the project, was onsite with an excavator digging out the bushes. The developer offered lunch and coffee to those working that day, Garfinkel explained.
“They were really awesome to work with,” he added.
Garfinkel is still trying to decide where to put them – there isn’t enough space for a “blueberry orchard” so they might form hedges around garden plots or be placed among the current orchard.
Some of the bushes are over six feet tall with a base diameter of 10 to 12 inches, Garfinkel explained.
The plants have been “heeled in” for the winter – that is placed at a 45-degree angle with soil and compost around the roots.
In February or March they will be planted by KPU students.
Garfinkel sees this as a legacy project for the KPU Farm School – the goal of the agricultural school is to teach a diversity of topics, and this adds to it.
“I love that it adds to their knowledge base for future years – our goal is student education,” he said. “It teaches them… a situation that isn’t ideal, we can turn it and benefit from it.”
While Garfinkel doesn’t know what variety the blueberries are – or exactly how old they are – he said their berries are big, sweet and tasty and the plants are very productive.
The property, located on No. 5 Road just south of Steveston Highway – across the road from the Richmond Animal Shelter which is currently being rebuilt – is designated as industrial in the Official Community Plan (OCP) and isn't in the Agricultural Land Reserve.
The owners are in the process of rezoning it and their goal for construction is a completion date of 2024.
