50 speakers later: No vote yet on Saint John industrial park plan

Saint John council's vote on a proposed expansion of the Spruce Lake Industrial Park was delayed again Tuesday night after another 25 members of the public spoke against it.

More people were still waiting to speak nearly four hours into the meeting, when council decided to adjourn and resume the public hearing on June 3.

Coun. Greg Norton pushed for the adjournment and said this would give both opposition and supporters of the project time to process their thoughts. The proposal deserves a "full deliberation, no matter how many meetings it takes," Norton said. 

"This council is in no rush. The proponents are not in a rush. The community is not in a rush."

Council is considering a proposal that would make hundreds of hectares of an expanded industrial park "pad ready" for economic growth.

About 90 people were again present for the public hearing on the rezoning, which began on May 12 and lasted until late at night, delaying a vote.

More than 50 people have spoken against the project so far. Supporters have not yet had their say. 

The city announced last July that it wanted to expand the industrial park in Lorneville, a rural area on the southwestern edge of the city.

The proposal now is to create a Spruce Lake industrial zone that would open the area to light, medium and heavy industrial development. 

The city says the area will primarily be used for light and medium industry, with a focus on attracting industry from the  "green and clean" sectors. Many heavy industrial uses — such as scrap yards, pulp mills and emitters — would be prohibited by policy.

Some heavy industry uses would still be permitted under what city staff said would be exceptional circumstances and would be subjected to risk assessments. 

But Lorneville residents have told council they don't want the area left open to heavy industry and have asked for a delay in the expansion until the city knows more about the impact of potential developments.

Letters continue coming in

Since the hearing was adjourned the first time, the city has received more letters on top of the hundreds it already had. 

One came from Ron Tremblay, grand chief of the Wolastoqey Nation, which represents six Indigenous communities in the province. Tremblay urged council to reject the expansion, echoing concerns about wetland loss and environmental damage.

The area of the expansion is on the First Nation's original homeland of Menahqesk, now Saint John.

"We as original citizens were never consulted or even advised of the proposed work," Tremblay wrote. 

"If this industrial park is approved, it will disturb the biological system that is vital to every species that is reliant on this fragile ecosystem."

Some residents sent letters pushing back on comments by Mayor Donna Reardon at the previous meeting, when she asked residents to focus their comments on land use instead of environmental concerns.

Environmental concerns, Reardon said, are dealt with through a separate process — an environmental impact assessment, conducted by the province, and one is still in progress for the Spruce Lake project. 

This amounted to discouraging people from having public environmental concerns, some suggested.

Residents exhausted after months of protest

Speakers Tuesday night added to the chorus of concerns about quality of life and the environment that they say will impact future generations. While the meeting did not see tempers flare as first one did, it was emotional at times.

Resident Jolene Maguire said impact of the proposal goes beyond the physical land to the current daily lives of people,  who have spent nearly a year trying to "become experts overnight" for their protest efforts.

"People are exhausted," she said in her address to councillors. "They spent countless hours poring over dense reports, attending late night meetings, researching zoning laws and environmental science.

"I know residents who have spent the majority of their maternity leaves fighting this, a time that should have been sacred, filled with quiet mornings and baby snuggles and those first smiles," she said.

Norton, who represents Ward 1, which includes Lorneville, said the exhaustion comes from the number of major projects that have come before council in recent years that have been in the west of the city.

These include the Irving Pulp & Paper Mill proposal for Wolastoq Park — to turn most of it into a parking lot because of a major mill expansion — and any plans for the Simms Corner intersection.

"The public should be clear that all of the big proposals coming in, and all of the public hearings that are coming in, are happening on the west side within Ward 1, above city line," he said. 

"That host community is underneath a tremendous amount of stress from public hearings, growth and proposals that are certainly putting the community on edge."