The rental housing market just keeps getting tighter in Sackville, and a local developer says it will be a year or two before his company is able to build new units to alleviate that.
John Lafford’s company is busy with a large project in downtown Moncton, but says that his next priority is a project in Sackville, at one of three properties he owns: a large parcel at the end of Wright St, the newly acquired historic building at 131 Main, or a newly vacant lot at 56 Main, beside the old fire hall and current Kookie Kutter.
On Thursday, an apartment building at 56 Main Street was torn down, with the previous tenants having been evicted earlier in the spring.
CHMA caught up with the site’s owner, John Lafford, to find out what the future holds for his properties.
Listen to that interview here:
Lafford says he has no immediate plans for the property at 56 Main.
“That building has been kind of in distress for a lot of years,” he says, adding that the timing worked out for the demolition to happen this week. “It’s going to be a great site for a mixed use apartment building, but just I don’t know when. We have nothing designed yet.”
The mixed use zoning of that portion of Main Street means the new building will include street level retail as well as residential apartments, says Lafford.
Another property recently acquired by Lafford is not zoned for residential development, even though the previous owner applied to have that changed. 131 Main Street has been a controversial property in the past 10 years. Back in 2014, Sackville town council rejected then-owner Gordon Beal’s request to rezone the property for multi-unit residential. Part of Beal’s plan included an additional building near the back of the property which backs onto a Mount Allison field, and then the Waterfowl Park.
Then in February 2021, a number of people were evicted from the building after a legal battle between Beal and the town over improper zoning and safety issues with the apartments he was renting.
Lafford says his long term vision for the historic 131 Main includes possible residential development, and plans for a boutique hotel. “That’s what I thought the building would do well at,” says Lafford.
He also thinks residential development on the property makes sense, given its location. “It’s a great residential area. It’s in a perfect location to have residents live there and be close to downtown.”
“It’s a beautiful property,” says Lafford. “I’ve lived here my whole life, so when I saw it up for sale, I thought maybe that would be something that we should be looking at.”
The third possible development spot for Lafford is at the end of Wright Street, behind Foodland and the liquor store. Lafford says he owns 26 acres there that will become a residential area featuring single-level garden homes for rent.
“But we need a road to that, right?,” says Lafford. “Right now, there’s no road that crosses that ravine, and all the other developments that we have, have roads to them. So, I’m working with the town to try and partner on a road.”
Lafford says that within one to two years, his company will have a development underway in Sackville. “And it’ll have some scale to it as well,” says Lafford. “It will meet or eliminate the need.”
“If there’s a need and you have land and you’re a builder, you should build there,” he says. “Sackville is our home and we’ve done a lot of development [here]. And now with the shortage of housing, I think it’s just very logical that we would try and take that need head on, as a business decision, right?”