{"id":7129,"date":"2024-04-15T16:42:56","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T19:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=7129"},"modified":"2024-04-15T17:19:13","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T20:19:13","slug":"nova-scotia-queens-to-spend-21-million-to-expand-water-sewer-to-mount-pleasant-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2024\/04\/15\/nova-scotia-queens-to-spend-21-million-to-expand-water-sewer-to-mount-pleasant-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens County to add more housing with $21-million water, sewer expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Kim Masland, Queens MLA and Nova Scotia’s public works minister, announces $10.7 million in provincial funding for a $21.5-million water and sewer expansion that gives the green light to two new housing developments in the Liverpool area. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Nova Scotia government and the Region of Queens are teaming up on a $21.5-million project to extend and improve water and sewer services in the Liverpool area.<\/span><\/p>\n

Queens MLA Kim Masland on Monday announced $10.7 million in provincial funding to\u00a0<\/span>expand water and wastewater service to the Mount Pleasant area. The region will pitch in $10.8 million.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The project means that two new private housing developments will go ahead on more than 60 acres of land. About 325 new housing units will be built for up to 1,200 people. It will be a mix of sold and rented space. About a third of those units could be affordable housing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Masland, who is also Nova Scotia’s public works minister, made the announcement at the region\u2019s municipal offices in Liverpool on behalf of John Lohr, the minister of municipal affairs and housing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need this funding, we know our community\u2019s growing, we certainly need affordable and more housing stock within our community,” she said in an interview after the announcement. <\/span><\/p>\n

“We\u2019re attracting people to our community every day, there are med professionals that want to come here. This is a great project. This will allow us to build more houses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Masland said a municipal housing needs assessment found that Queens County needs 555 more housing units by the end of 2027. She said it\u2019s difficult to recruit health care staff to move to the area if there\u2019s nowhere to live.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need people building faster. We need homes up, we need places for people to live. We are in a housing crisis in the province and we\u2019re going to do whatever we can to make sure we can help.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The funding will also improve existing water and sewer services to more than 1,200 homes and businesses in the area, and help improve the amount of water available for firefighting efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Region of Queens Mayor Darlene Norman emphasized that the funding will do more than help developers build new homes.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said the current infrastructure is at or over capacity. The project will improve service for residents in Liverpool, Brooklyn and Milton.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some really crucial repairs that need to be made to our system, so it can expand in all directions. This is not case-specific for specific people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The provincial portion of the funding comes from the $102-million Municipal Capital Growth Program. The region applied in December for the funding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Norman said the region\u2019s finance staff are working now to figure out how the municipal portion will be funded. The region is currently working on its 2024\/25 budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adam Grant, the region\u2019s director of engineering and public works, said Monday he hopes the work will be finished in 24 to 36 months.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo work is already underway. Following the feasibility study, we\u2019ve migrated into some design work preliminary and that\u2019s underway right now, looking at having designs rolled out in the fall and construction starting in the next 12 months ideally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The developers behind the two housing projects said Monday they were excited by the news. They\u2019ve lobbied the municipality for the past few years to extend water and sewer services to those areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both projects are near downtown Liverpool.<\/span><\/p>\n

Larry Cochrane plans an 87-unit development on the old Dauphinee Farm property near Queens General Hospital, which would include a 24-unit apartment building.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said he will soon begin the design phase of the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wish it was faster of course, but we\u2019ll take that because there\u2019s lots of work I need to do to get ready to start a project like this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Graham van der Pas is a partner with Rumclo Developments. They plan a three-stage development on about 30 acres of land farther up the road from Cochrane\u2019s project.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very, very excited. We\u2019ve been lobbying for this for the past two years. So it\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rumclo development will feature The Point, which will have 124, two-bedroom homes for sale, The Curve, with 22 three-bedroom townhouses, and Birchwood Gardens, 82 affordable rental apartments. Van der Pas said the affordable rentals will be 80 per cent of the median market rate. A one-bedroom would be about $800 a month, a two-bedroom $1,000 and a three-bedroom would rent for $1,200.<\/span><\/p>\n

A section of The Curve will also be reserved for staff from Queens General Hospital to rent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think a community like this needs it,\u201d van der Pas said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think what our developments will bring to the town is \u2026 a significant amount of property taxes. The revenue will go up there, the economic revenue of people potentially starting businesses, new patrons for the businesses that are already existing. It\u2019s significant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ashley Christian, president of the South Queens Chamber of Commerce, said she\u2019s happy that such a big investment is being made in Queens.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been advocating through the chamber of commerce for more housing for a couple of years. So we\u2019re so excited to see this huge investment, especially made by the municipality, really impressed by that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Christian said she\u2019s especially happy that half the funding is coming from the province. She said she hopes that means the project won’t be a big burden on municipal taxpayers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/watersewerfundnewsapr1524.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nova Scotia government and the Region of Queens are teaming up on a $21.5-million project to extend and improve water and sewer services in the Liverpool area. Queens MLA Kim Masland on Monday announced $10.7 million in provincial funding to\u00a0expand water and wastewater service to the Mount Pleasant area. The region will pitch in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[958,360,2050,1312,48,79,2051,1200,2047,384,2049,367,442,31,1014,39,102,1152,49,337,2048,2052,2053,217,1313,1073,1015,1153],"class_list":["post-7129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-adam-grant","tag-affordable-housing","tag-ashley-christian","tag-birchwood-gardens","tag-brooklyn","tag-darlene-norman","tag-firefighting","tag-funding","tag-graham-van-der-pas","tag-housing","tag-housing-developments","tag-infrastructure","tag-john-lohr","tag-kim-masland","tag-larry-cochrane","tag-liverpool","tag-milton","tag-mount-pleasant","tag-queens-county","tag-queens-general-hospital","tag-rumclo-developments","tag-sewer","tag-sewer-upgrades","tag-south-queens-chamber-of-commerce","tag-the-curve","tag-the-point","tag-wastewater","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7129"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7135,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7129\/revisions\/7135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}