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

Growth Back in 2021, the CBRM went looking for a consultant to: …complete a new Municipal Planning Strategy (MPS), Economic Development Strategy, Land Use By-law (LUB), and other related enabling by-laws including the Subdivision By-law. The contract, worth $217,391.30, was awarded to Dillon Consulting which subcontracted two additional consultants—David Campbell ofRead...

I lost track of how many times participants in Tuesday’s “CBRM Forward” discussion used the words “excited” or “exciting.” Literally everyone who spoke was either excited to be there or excited at the prospect of overhauling the municipality’s planning strategy and land-use by-law or excited to be drafting an economicRead More

I have to start by quoting myself. This is what I wrote about Chris Skidmore’s RV Park proposal for Big Pond back in February 2018 CBRM planning staff seem really keen on this Big Pond RV Park idea. I don’t know how else to interpret the time and effort planningRead More

Editor’s Note: John Whalley, the former Economic Development Manager of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) is suing the CBRM for constructive dismissal. The case finally came to trial from 20-24 August 2018 and the Spectator was there. We’re presenting our coverage in a series of articles because the trialRead More

The Big Pond RV Park debate (which, as the Allman Brothers would say, is over but ain’t through) raised a lot of interesting questions for me, about everything from the purpose of public consultation to the role of the Nova Scotia Utilities and Review Board (UARB) to the responsibility ofRead More

Cape Breton Regional Municipal Council voted on Wednesday morning to approve a zoning by-law amendment to allow developer Chris Skidmore to establish a 211-site RV Park in Big Pond Centre. The vote was 7-6 with Councilors Clarence Prince, Earlene MacMullin, Steve Gillespie, George MacDonald, Darren Bruckschwaiger, Jim MacLeod and Mayor CecilRead More