Residents around Eagles Head Beach noticed workers began arriving to a work site near the beach last week and since then what they’ve seen has disturbed them.
“It’s an eyesore and it’s harming the environment and the animals that use the beach,” said protestor Jaylene Corkum.
Currently, at the beach, you can see a new road that has been built just behind the beach that was constructed to facilitate a new house being built on the lot.
Excavators have been on site since last week and have been digging up sand and grass, and many of the protestors are concerned that this is being done illegally.
They have raised concerns that the build is damaging habitats of endangered species like piping plovers and blue herrings, and they are now working to confirm that they live and nest at the beach. They also are looking into whether or not the build would be in violation of the Coastal Protection Act which was passed in 2019.
The Coastal Protection Act is unlikely to help them in their cause, due to the fact that is still being implemented in the regulations and policies of all provincial government departments a process which isn’t expected to be complete until 2023. The province has indicated they will not begin enforcing it until all departments have the correct policies in place.
The housing build is being undertaken by former Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly, who has been subject to recent controversies during his time as Halifax Mayor and as CAO for the City of Charlottetown.
Protestor Ian Kent says he doesn’t care about Peter Kelly’s history, but rather that this is wrong and would be regardless of who was pursuing it. Photo: Evan Taylor
Although Kelly has a troubled past Corkum says that isn’t what they want to focus on, “Our goal is to do with our environment, our beach itself, it has noting to do with who’s building this property, anybody could be building this and we would have the same concerns.
One protestor, Ian Kent, did make signs which feature Kelly’s face, though he explained that they do not reference any of his history but rather focus on the fact that this project is just “wrong” in general.
