The Other Vantreights

Posted By: Monday Magazine Staff

08/10/2010 7:45 PM

Sisters pan brother Ian’s property development plans

By Jason Youmans

After years of newspaper and television reports referring to their brother Ian’s Central Saanich business as the “Vantreight family farm,” sisters Heather Vantreight, Wendy Gedney and Sharon Hancock are tired of journalists making their relatives out to be the Sound of Music’s Von Trapp’s, all-the-more so since the three can only shake their heads from the sidelines as the agricultural enterprise where they grew up slides toward subdivision.

“Ian using the ‘Vantreight family farm’ phrase is extremely misleading,” says Sharon. “The girls don’t own the farm, it was given to ‘the boys’ because they were boys, that’s what our father told us.”

“Most of ‘the girls,’ as we were so often called, cringe when hearing ‘The Vantreight family this,’ ‘The Vantreight family that.’ It’s not our family operation—it is Ian’s operation . . . to the best of my knowledge, Ian is the sole owner of the company, and when you call it ‘The Vantreight family farm,’ it makes it sound like Leave it to Beaver,” says Heather. “So, it should be called ‘Ian’s business.’ The words ‘farm’ and ‘family’ just makes it sound like it’s Disneyland. If you take all the icing off of the cake and look inside, it’s not what people might think it is.”

The daughters of Vantreight patriarch Geoff—there are five of them—have generally steered clear of public comment on issues pertaining to the farm. Geoff gave each of his two sons one third of the farm when the boys were in their 20’s and whether it was the brother’s squabble over its future after Geoff died, or Ian’s ongoing plan to build a commuter subdivision on part of the property, the sisters have kept quiet. But, as approval of Ian’s rezoning request was looking increasingly likely, Heather stepped forward at a recent public hearing on the matter, and agreed to speak to Monday about her perspective on the plan.

“The whole issue is just so out of hand in so many different ways,” she says. “I keep looking at it and thinking ‘Are people just not in tune with what the issue really is here?’ Someone takes a viable business in 2000 after our dad passed away, and for reasons unknown to the public, it’s going to go under if the community doesn’t change the zoning and the [Official Community Plan]? Wow, how many other farmers are in this situation? And without Ian providing any financial statements that could explain how this upset happened, Central Saanich is expecting this same businessperson to make better decisions in the future? Where is his financial business plan to back this all up?”

Heather continues, “Ian will push this through, because it’s what he wants. He won’t give up. But at the end of the day, when all the lots are sold and if he still can’t make ends meet, who is going to suffer then? You’ve opened a door in Central Saanich that you can’t close now. Precedent has been made.”

Monday called Ian Vantreight for a response to concerns raised by his sisters, but he was unwilling to wade too deep into the matter.

“I’m not going to discuss family or drag family into this, so, next subject,” he said. “What does it matter, a family member’s concern? How is that different from anyone else?”

Heather suggests that Ian’s interest in developing the Central Saanich land is not a mere product of the farm’s present financial circumstances and, from what she has been told, he’s been sketching out the design since before their dad died. “Ian developed the last of our grandfather’s Gordon Head farmland that granddad paid for back in the early 1900’s,” she says. “Ian loved developing and really seemed to enjoy the process. He got a taste for it.”

Meanwhile, Heather has become skeptical that keeping one big farm is the solution to modern farming’s profitability problems, citing the fact numerous small farms in the region are thriving.

“Dad [Geoff] was a pretty basic, decent guy. I mean, he did a lot of things that people shook their heads at, but you knew his heart was generally in a good place. His business sense was his brilliance. But this is wrong, changing zoning and the OCP because a businessman is having financial hardship. That should not be why zoning and official community plans get changed. I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the public. It might be in the best interest of the farm—Ian’s farm—but it might not be in the interest of the future of farming.” M