CLAUDIA CHENDER: Dartmouth Cove community not on board with infilling
CLAUDIA CHENDER • Guest Opinion
Claudia Chender is the NDP MLA for Dartmouth South, which includes Dartmouth Cove
In his June 4 opinion piece, Bruce Wood, the CEO of the Dartmouth Cove Waterfront Access Project, says his infill plan in Dartmouth South “... was done in the spirit of community-building.” That's hard to believe, given the rapid, organized and strong opposition from that very community.
The privately owned water lot in Dartmouth Cove that this company wants to infill with construction materials, including pyritic slate, is next to city park land and a well-used, beloved trail system. An infill project in this spot is wrong for this neighbourhood and could impact the community for years.
According to the company's application to the federal regulators, the duration of the project would be six to eight years, not the one to two years that Mr. Wood mentions.
The zoning of any land created in Dartmouth Cove would be parkland under the Centre Plan. So any claim that this is with future housing or other benefits in mind is disingenuous at best. Zoning can change, but not without time and effort, and we’re years away from the beginning those conversations.
There’s a clear gap in how we manage infill projects along our coastline and how we plan development that includes ways to deal with the pyritic slate dug up in the process. We need a strategy for the disposal of these materials that doesn’t rely on savvy investors buying up pre-Confederation water lots that are not regulated based on community impact or benefit. The federal regulatory process takes into account only any interruption to sea life or navigable waterways. There is no consideration possible about the negative impact of turning part of a downtown park into a dump.
Creating a construction zone, with large trucks dumping slate and other stone into the harbour, isn’t the kind of “community building” that I and other local representatives have been working on for the last number of years.
When this type of project is proposed, as an elected official and community champion, my metric is to ask whether the project is for the public good. Based on the information available, I can only conclude that the answer is no.
Claudia Chender is the NDP MLA for Dartmouth South, which includes Dartmouth Cove