The most controversial item on CBRM council’s agenda last night was dropped like a hot potato just hours before the meeting. The initial version of the agenda included a staff recommendation that the municipality sell 1,002 acres of land (in the form of five adjacent lots in the Coxheath area)Read More

Having gone on at length about an item that was dropped from the agenda of last night’s CBRM council meeting, I will now review some of the items that actually were discussed—but I warn you, that dropped item will haunt my coverage like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.   Wetlands/BiosphereRead...

Developer Joneljim Construction has come to CBRM council twice recently, asking for modifications to the 2012 purchase and sale agreement under which the company bought the 120-hectare Cossitt Heights Industrial Park on Sydney’s Upper Prince Street with the stated intention of turning it into a $51 million residential subdivision. JoneljimRead More

Watching the video of the July 20 Public Hearing on the CBRM’s new Municipal Planning Strategy (MPS) and Land Use By-law (LUB), I had to seriously interrogate myself as to why I didn’t share many of the concerns expressed by the residents who came to the podium to offer theirRead More

Last Wednesday, during your regularly scheduled edition of the Cape Breton Spectator, I reported in some detail on the planning department’s presentation to CBRM council of the updated Municipal Planning Strategy and Land Use By-law. Except for a side bar on rooming houses, the story relied entirely on what plannersRead More

I hadn’t really thought about the time lag between amalgamation in 1995 and the adoption of a single Municipal Planning Strategy for the CBRM in 2004 until I saw it spelled out in the CBRM Forward Issue Paper presented to council by planning director Michael Ruus on Tuesday. Knowing itRead More

Tuesday’s budget deliberations by CBRM council actually followed a regular council meeting that began at 9:30 yesterday morning, but I’m going to deal with the budget first because somebody has to deal with the CBRM budget in a timely manner and it certainly hasn’t been CBRM council. Councilors, who votedRead More

CBRM council agreed unanimously on Monday to apply for contribution funding under the federal government’s $4 billion Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF). I missed the council meeting during which the application was discussed (I’d hoped to be able to watch it before press time, but the video has yet to beRead More

  Estragon: I can’t go on like this. Vladimir: That’s what you think. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot   Part II: Four Ways to Change the Local World   Proposal #1: A CBRM Citizens’ Assembly on COVID-19 & Post-Pandemic Recovery “Watershed periods in history,” Mikhail Gorbachev declared in 1992, “mayRead More

Water/Wastewater Commission Greg Campbell (no relation, a point I feel obliged to underline regularly for his sake), manager of technical services for the CBRM’s Water Utility, appeared before CBRM council last night and I realized that I had dropped the ball in my coverage of his issue, which is theRead More