Excellent, informative article! The ALR in BC has been a disaster in many respects, but nobody's willing to admit it! The ALR is throughout BC, not just in the Lower Mainland.  I always find it amusing that, the same people who don't like high-rises and increased urban density, are the same people who don't like urban sprawl.
Unfortunately for them, we are all now witnessing the effects of a badly planned land use initiative put forth by the NDP in BC back in the early seventies!....you can't have it both ways people!

I wonder if those same people realize that, before there was any "farmland"  in BC, it was all forest that had to be clear cut and burned to make way for those farms. I'm sure if they were around then, they would have tied themselves to the trees to prevent their destruction!

BC is huge and although mostly mountainous, still has hundreds of fertile valleys that are forested that could be cleared for agricultural use but try telling that to the hypocritical tree huggers!