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West Kelowna  

Land swap over 700 acres

The land-swap agreement reached last week between the provincial government and Westbank First Nation offers even more land than West Kelowna residents balked at in 2011.

The initial agreement offered 698 acres of Crown land around the Rose Valley reservoir in exchange for eight acres of WFN land required for construction of the Westside Road interchange.

The municipality and residents of West Kelowna raised an uproar that eventually killed that deal. But last week's revised agreement puts together a package of land and cash included approximately 670 acres of Crown land plus 65 acres of private land.

Two of the properties are within the Agricultural Land Reserve.

According to the province, the total value of the package is $6 million and includes $1.5 million in cash from the government.

Once the sale is complete, exact locations of the properties will be released, but the province has said the Crown land is located along McCulloch Road, between WFN reserves at Medicine Creek and Medicine Hill. The two ALR private properties are within the City of Kelowna on Spiers Road and Hereron Road.

A third piece of private land is located on the eastern shores of Lower Arrow Lake, near Fauquier, on Starlite Road.



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