East Hants council overturns controversial zoning law for agricultural lands

After months of backlash, a controversial new zoning law in the Municipality of East Hants has been changed into something much more flexible.

The municipality had proposed zoning most of the Minas Basin shoreline, and pockets around Rawdon, N.S., as agricultural reserve. 

That designation would protect the lands for years to come by restricting its use for farming only, and allow only those engaged in the agricultural activities to build any homes or new structures.

But on Wednesday, councillors voted unanimously to give those areas a rural-use designation, which would allow multiple uses, including farming and low-density development.

"The squeaky wheel does get greased and I think they knew that we were a force to be reckoned with, and we weren't going to back down," Anne Crowe said from her dairy farm in Burntcoat, N.S., on Thursday.

Crowe and her daughter Elizabeth, who plans to one day run the family farm, helped organize community opposition to the zoning, and gathered hundreds of signatures for a petition to council on the issue.

People both inside and outside the farming industry argued that the agricultural reserve would only hurt the area. They said land values would plummet if only active farmers could build new homes or structures.

While the zoning might be useful in other areas of the municipality, where there's a high density of farms and more development pressure, Crowe said it doesn't make sense to apply in an area where there's only a handful of working farms.

"Some of our people were in their 80s, they had farmed their whole lives — it just wasn't feasible for them to start farming again so they could build a house for one of their kids," Crowe said.

"It just made no sense. It was so restrictive that you couldn't breathe."

Coun. Keith Rhyno presented the community petition during Wednesday's meeting, and made the motion to overturn the reserve in favour of rural use.

He and other councillors said it was the right move after weeks of emails and calls from residents.

"If there's no land for developers … our area's going to die," Rhyno said. 

The municipality will be looking at a community proposal for land use for about half of East Hants that hasn't been zoned — a recent provincial requirement for all municipalities to tackle.

Although one criteria from the province is to consider agricultural reserves, they already exist in the other half of the municipality that's already been zoned.

Plan goes to province next

Warden Eleanor Roulston said while there's risks associated with moving ahead without the reserve zoning — since the province could send it back — she hopes the government recognizes that people spoke loud and clear against it.

"It's their properties and their lives that are going to be affected, and at the end of the day, that's what we have to consider first and foremost," Roulston said Thursday.

The draft community plan will soon go to the province for a final decision.