Online comments sent to RCMP as opposition grows to Lunenburg development

Frustration over the proposed development of a historic hill in Lunenburg continues to simmer — and may have boiled over, with the municipality now reporting some social media comments to police.

The Town of Lunenburg issued a request for proposals last month, seeking designs for a residential development on a nine-hectare site on Blockhouse Hill, which slopes towards the town's Back Harbour. The proposals are due by March 31.

Local resident and business owner Anna Shoub said she was "blindsided" by the town's RFP.

"This is a gem. Like, this is no place for apartment buildings. There's other, more appropriate places," Shoub said in a recent interview.

Shoub is a member of the Friends of Blockhouse Hill, a group that has formed to oppose development on the hill and is calling for a public meeting.

She said the plan to eventually densify the hill was buried in the town's Comprehensive Community Plan (CCP) which went through public consultation in 2019 but was finished during the pandemic — so most people didn't see the result.

"There's absolutely no reason to rush on such an enormous issue," Shoub said.

She said people are frustrated because there are newer areas of town that seem better suited for development — such as Hall Street, near a grocery store and other amenities, where the town has listed a similar-sized plot of land for $750,000.

Shoub is also worried about the loss of greenspace and trees on the back side of the hill, and said the roads heading up to the steep site won't be easy to navigate for seniors or young families hoping to move in.

Some online comments on the proposed development have now prompted the town to contact RCMP.  Municipal spokesman Michael Best said in an email that staff have reported two such comments, neither of which were specific to any councillor or staff member.

The comments in question contained thinly veiled references to drowning and hangings in retaliation for the proposed development.

"The Town of Lunenburg does not take these kinds of comments lightly and will continue to take appropriate action where necessary," Best said Monday.

Comments 'unacceptable'

Best said the RCMP have told them that unless the threat is "specific and addressed to a particular individual" the police don't have any authority to lay a charge. CBC has reached out to the RCMP but did not receive a response by deadline.

In a post Monday, Shoub said violent language is "completely unacceptable" and the commenters don't represent the group.

"We now have community members, because please remember that councillors are community members, who feel unsafe to leave their homes," Shoub said.

Although the town has said densifying Blockhouse Hill will help alleviate the provincial housing crisis, former councillor and developer Thom Barclay said the site's water views make it some of the most expensive land in the province.

"You simply won't have the room to develop the number of units that will bring any sort of meaningful change to an affordable housing issue," Barclay said.

Mayor Matt Risser said he has heard the concerns loud and clear, but has also gotten "quiet support."

"The future for towns is densification or dissolution. We have a lot of infrastructure that we are struggling to keep up with," Risser said in an interview last week.

Risser said the Upper Hall Street site is zoned as industrial and is next to the Stelia aerospace manufacturing facility, so it makes sense to keep those lands open for future businesses.

He said the reality is that development is needed all over town as the housing crisis is "more acute here than other places."

"Lunenburg is as we all know a very beautiful town and so it winds up being a very high-demand town," Risser said.

"If you don't keep providing more housing … then, you know, you wind up becoming exclusionary as a community."

Risser said residents should bring their concerns to public meetings that will eventually be held to share the four possible designs.

"There's not really much point in having a meeting when you don't know what your design is going to be and what the community is going to react to and look at," Risser said.

The town is planning to sell the land to a developer who will carry out the chosen design.