Nova ScotiaCoun. Sam Austin urged his fellow councillors Tuesday to vote sooner than later on bylaw changes, or risk having private landowners infill at any time if they get federal permits.Staff had suggested council wait for Dartmouth waterfront plan before making changesHaley Ryan · CBC News · Posted: Sep 10, 2025 10:06 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoA section of Dartmouth Cove in Halifax harbour is shown on Monday, May 13, 2024. (Richard Cuthbertson/CBC)Halifax regional council will make a decision this month on infilling restrictions in Dartmouth Cove after the area’s councillor warned there is “great risk” in dragging the process out for another year.Sam Austin urged his fellow councillors Tuesday to vote sooner than later on bylaw changes, or risk having private landowners infill at any time if they get federal permits.”[Then] our planning will be led not by community vision, not by all of us, it’ll be led just by these individual actions of different property owners,” Austin said during the council meeting.Council approved Austin’s motion and will decide whether or not to move ahead with the restrictions at its next meeting on Sept. 23.That plan runs counter to recommendations from municipal staff who suggested Tuesday that any new infilling rules should wait until a development plan for the entire Dartmouth waterfront is complete. That is expected by the end of 2026.Coun. Sam Austin, who represents the Dartmouth Cove area, says infill restrictions are needed now to allow the city time to plan for a larger vision for the area. (Preston Mulligan/CBC)The issue largely stems from a construction company’s plan to dump 100,000 cubic metres of pyritic slate and quarry rock into the cove to create land. The numbered company proposing the project is associated with Atlantic Road Construction & Paving Ltd.Infilling in the Halifax harbour normally requires permits from Transport Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Protections enacted last year for the Northwest Arm require a municipal permit for any infilling for a limited number of reasons, such as for public infrastructure, parks, retaining walls or historic sites.Mayor Andy Fillmore was a staunch supporter of the Northwest Arm restrictions when he was MP for Halifax, but said Tuesday that situation was “substantially different” from Dartmouth Cove, which is in the “working harbour.”He and Coun. David Hendsbee were the only ones who opposed Austin’s motion.Fillmore said about a third of the Northwest Arm could have been lost if all water lots were infilled. By comparison, the construction company’s infill proposal for Dartmouth Cove would take up “statistically an insignificant area of the harbour,” Fillmore said.The company’s proposal would stretch for more than three football fields in length along the shoreline, and be roughly 90 metres wide.Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore says he thinks it makes sense to wait for the larger Dartmouth waterfront plan before creating infill restrictions. (CBC)The mayor said waiting for a larger Dartmouth waterfront plan that examines where development, infill, or public green spaces should be, makes sense.”To get a bylaw out the door now, in my belief, puts the cart ahead of the horse,” Fillmore told reporters outside the meeting.Staff said the federal government was directly supportive of the Northwest Arm case, and reviewed the bylaws before they were implemented. Although the municipality alerted both the provincial and federal governments last year to possible bylaw changes regulating infill on Dartmouth Cove, staff said neither level of government had relayed specific support — or concerns — about such changes.In a Tuesday letter to Fillmore, Transport Canada said any Halifax municipal decision to “restrict infilling by way of bylaws is within its own authority,” provided those bylaws do not intrude on federal jurisdiction, such as navigation and shipping.Although Atlantic Paving originally obtained permission to begin infilling, Transport Canada rescinded the permit last June amid opposition from the public and local politicians.Company says its proposal could enhance fish, wildlife habitatBruce Wood, chief financial officer for Atlantic Road Construction & Paving, watched Tuesday’s debate from the public gallery along with several other company members.Wood told reporters the company wanted to attend to “shed some light” on the infill proposal.Although residents have brought up environmental concerns, Wood said reports they have commissioned show most of the area is “heavily contaminated” due to decades of sewage waste and industrial use. Their project will actually improve fish and wildlife habitat with a new rocky beach to spur the growth of rockweed seaweed, he said.Bruce Wood, chief financial officer of Atlantic Road Construction & Paving Ltd., speaks with reporters at Halifax City Hall on Sept. 9, 2025. (Haley Ryan/CBC)Jill Brogan of Friends of Dartmouth Cove, a community group that has pushed for infill restrictions, said Wood’s stance that the project will improve the cove’s environment “doesn’t fly with us.””The rockweed is already there. The eel grass is there … There’s eider ducks, there’s seals, there’s all kinds of things in the cove and it’s used all the time,” Brogan told reporters outside the meeting.She said the cove is important to the wider community beyond those who live nearby, and urged the province to approve any bylaw changes brought in by Halifax.”It would look really bad if they were able to bring in protective measures for the wealthy Northwest Arm, which is the private playground of the rich … and would leave Dartmouth Cove out in the dark, where it is used primarily by the public,” Brogan said.She said she is hopeful council will pass the infill restrictions at the next meeting, which would be the first reading. Halifax would then schedule a public hearing before making a decision at the second and final reading.ABOUT THE AUTHORHaley Ryan is the municipal affairs reporter for CBC covering mainland Nova Scotia. Got a story idea? Send an email to haley.ryan@cbc.ca, or reach out on Twitter @hkryan17.
Halifax to decide this month on regulating infill around Dartmouth Cove
