This podcast interview is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, and right here:

Alexa Loo is a former Olympic athlete and current city councillor who has witnessed a pull-and-tug over the maximum size of houses on Richmond farmland. She explains what the root of the issue appears to have been for some people.

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Q: I must congratulate you on being newly inaugurated to a second council term. Whose idea was it for the men and the women to take separate oaths of office?

A: What ended up happening is the men ended up sitting on the one side of the room and the women sat on the other side. It just worked out that way. On the women’s side, we even sit in alphabetical order. And that wasn’t planned either.

Q: So is this going to be like a seventh grade dance with the boys on one side and the girls on the other for the next four years?

A: Yes! It is what it is.

Q: On your island, you have something called the agricultural land reserve. About 39 percent of Richmond is farmland. Why were some councillors concerned about how long that would last?

A: There had never been a cap or a limit on the size of house that you could have on agricultural land. House sizes started to get bigger. There were starting to become applications for things as big as 40,000 square feet. You can put a skating rink in 40,000 square feet.

Q: In a meeting, your council decided to put a cap on the size of a house on farmland to around 11,000 square feet. I don’t know a lot about farming, but I’m assuming that with my bedroom, my children’s bedroom, my tractor’s bedroom, my wheat thresher’s bedroom, and the bedroom for my livestock–even with bunk beds I’d be pushing it with 11,000 square feet.

A: Well, a wheat thresher is so big, you can’t even drive it on a standard road, so–

Q: I would need a really big bedroom is what you’re saying?

A: You would. There’s a whole bunch of rules that still protect the farmland, so at some point, does it matter if they have a three-car garage or a four-car garage? Does it matter if you have six bedrooms or five bedrooms? Why is it anybody else’s business what they’re doing?

Q: The fact is some people were unhappy with the limit. They thought 11,000 square feet were way too many–

A: And there’s a lot of people that don’t want a proliferation of South Asian people living on farmland.

Q: Their outrage was specifically aimed at limiting a racial or ethnic group from building these houses?

A: Typically those are the people building it. It’s easy to go after the size and shape of things if you know it’s gonna stick it to that group, I think.

Q: You referred in council meetings to the “good old boys” and fairness. Why in the meeting did you couch your language like that?

A: Because standing up at a council meeting and calling other people racist is a bold and dangerous move. Throwing names around like that–we’re not allowed to call people names.

Q: Were there any other councillors who felt the way you did about the racial aspect?

A: Oh, everybody’s well aware of it. The 23,000 square foot house that had been built, it had been built by a Caucasian person in Richmond. And he had a bowling alley in it. So when people are like, “what do you need a big house for?” He needs a bowling alley, apparently. But nobody seemed to have a big problem with it. They were more in awe at the time. But now if somebody else builds one, there’s a problem around it.

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Follow Councillor Alexa Loo on Twitter: @alexaloo