Tantramar council has opted to consider an application for a $180,000 development incentive grant to Mike Wilson’s Right Coast Realty, even though the application came nearly 2.5 years late, according to the rules of Sackville’s economic development incentive program.
Councillors weighed in on both sides of the issue at Monday’s committee of the whole meeting, with Councillors Matt Estrabrooks and Michael Tower speaking in favour of awarding the grant and Councillors Josh Goguen, Debbie Wiggins-Colwell, and Allison Butcher speaking against.
Manager of tourism and economic development Ron Kelly Spurles told council that staff recommended against awarding the grant. “Our role is to ensure that program criteria are implemented as approved by Council,” said Kelly Spurles, “therefore, unfortunately, staff recommends that this not proceed.”
The incentive program was put in place in 2020 by the former town of Sackville, and aims to attract and encourage development in the former town by offering developers the opportunity to receive staggered rebates on their taxes over 5 or 10 years, depending on the size of their project.
The rules of the program require property owners to apply for the incentive in advance of starting construction on their project, and even before applying for a building permit.
The building permit for the AIL Pipe Factory at 108 Walker Road was issued in August 2022, but the property owners, Right Coast Realty Inc., did not apply for the incentive program until nearly two and a half years later, on January 9, 2025. And so municipal staff rejected the application because it didn’t meet the general conditions of the incentive program.
Right Coast Realty, owned by AIL Group CEO Mike Wilson, then requested the matter be brought to council for a decision.
Staff recommend rejecting application
In their report to council, Tantramar staff recommended rejecting Wilson’s grant application, citing the program criteria and the fact that the AIL factory had indeed already been built when the application was submitted. But the report also offered up two other options for council to consider, both of which involve ignoring the timing criteria and offering to pay out the financial incentive after the fact.
Councillor Matt Estabrooks spoke in favour of the third option outlined by staff, approving the $180,000 grant to Right Coast Realty, but starting payment in 2026, so the municipal budget can reflect the expense.
Estabrooks chalked up the two and a half year late application to a mistake in paperwork. “It seems like maybe somebody forgot to check a box or something,” said Estabrooks. He said he supported an option where “the developer, would still, you know, reap the benefits. And we need that business. We want that business. We want those things to happen here.”
Councillor Josh Goguen had a different take on the situation. “It’s unfortunate that this was missed by the developer,” said Goguen. “I really don’t know what we could do better to help in this case.”
Both Goguen and Councillor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell said they were concerned about the precedent that awarding the incentive after the fact would set. Wiggins-Colwell wondered if future applicants would think that they could also ignore parts of the program criteria, and that ignoring the rules could affect the general reputation of the municipality.
“Kudos to the company for doing it,” said Wiggins-Colwell. “You have to try… But as myself, as a councillor, and all the elected officials here, where we were elected to do a job… If we did this, I think [the company] would look at us in different set of eyes.”
‘There should be some kind of recognition’
Councillor Michael Tower said he shared concerns over the precedent that could be set, but at the same time argued that council should consider giving the incentive grant as recognition for the role AIL Group and Right Coast Realty in the municipality.
“There should be some kind of recognition for a company that brings those jobs into town,” said Tower. “They employ a lot of people, pay a lot of taxes, and a lot of their workers live in town and own property in town. So that’s something big for our municipality.”
Councillor Allison Butcher took issue with the idea that council would pick a company they thought worthy of the $180,000 grant.
“We already have an incentive program in place that has clear criteria,” said Butcher. “And if we are deciding that we no longer want to follow that criteria for whatever reason, then I don’t think we need to be picking and choosing who gets to do it. I think we need to go back to that incentive program and adjust it accordingly.”
“I am not interested in seeing this one go further,” said Butcher.
In the end council did vote to send the application ahead to a future council meeting for consideration, with Councillors Butcher and Goguen voting against. The approved motion asked staff to come up with a list of other possible developments that may have missed the application timeline in the past five years.
Another $1.5 million incentive grant on the docket for Feb 4
Before the late Right Coast Realty application returns to council, another much larger grant under the Sackville economic development incentive program will be back for consideration, also involving AIL Group’s Mike Wilson.
Wilson and developer John Lafford have teamed up as Wilford Development Incorporated to build a new 7 story building on York Street, and that development stands to get a rebate from the municipality of over $1.5 million over 10 years, if approved by Tantramar council at its meeting next week on Tuesday, February 4.
