March 4 Council Meeting - Council Rejects Proposed Zoning Changes

At the latest council meeting, Inverness County councillors voted against the proposed ban on new campgrounds from the RR-1 residential zone in Chéticamp. It was the proposal’s second and final reading in council.

District 1 Councillor Alfred Poirier argued that adding land use regulation to Chéticamp only would give the area an unfair economic disadvantage. “These changes would definitely need to be in effect for all of Inverness County and which, I don’t think, the rest of the councillors from Inverness County would be ready to sign,” he said. “I’ve talked with a lot of people around and they don’t feel that campgrounds, RVs’, are not a major problem to the citizens. I talked to some of them, and I talked to councillors and I talked to operators. This would only lead developers going anywhere but the Chéticamp area to develop new projects, which would be detrimental to my area.”

Councillor Poirier received support from all councillors, and the decision was unanimous. The ban would have been a momentary measure while the Eastern District Planning Commission developed a special zone for campgrounds.

While the matter is now considered closed for the Chéticamp area, Warden Laurie Cranton said council will continue to work on county-wide zoning by-laws. “Beyond this by-law, we do have a major job to do and look at zoning throughout the whole municipality, which is going to have rules for every community eventually,” he said. “The province is wanting us, we know, to look at getting zoning done in much more of our municipality than we have now. And that’s not just us, it’s for all municipalities.” In 2019, the Nova Scotia government gave Inverness County three years to fill gaps in its zoning regulation.