When Emilie McBride found herself looking for a new place to live in January this year, she thought she had a solution: build a small house on a piece of land she owns in Sackville.
“It’s a beautiful piece of land,” says McBride. “I want to be living there.” And so the Sackville woman started calling local contractors, but soon found out they were all booked for the year. “I wanted to be living there this year, in 2024, so my options were to look elsewhere,” says McBride, “to look for prefab structures.”
McBride landed on DR Cedar Homes based in Memramcook, going so far as to apply for a building permit this summer. But she soon learned that a quirk of Sackville’s planning bylaw would prevent her from proceeding.
Section 3.26 of the town of Sackville’s zoning bylaw states that detached dwelling units, “Shall have a minimum width and length of 6.1 metres (20 ft).” The home McBride had picked out for herself was a 504 square foot cedar home that measured 14 feet by 36 feet. While it was larger in area than the minimum allowed by Sackville’s zoning bylaw, it was the wrong shape. And so Plan 360 rejected the building permit for McBride’s manufactured home from DR Cedar.
McBride says she was told she could not apply for a variance to the rule just for her property, and so she and a friend, Natalie Donaher, started looking into options for square manufactured homes that McBride might be able to get in time for winter.
“Moving something 20 feet wide is difficult,” says McBride. A 20 foot by 24 foot house she and Donaher looked at in Woodstock was estimated to cost $27,000 to move to Sackville, said McBride, a price that was prohibitive.
So on the advice of Plan 360 planner Lori Bickford, McBride decided to ask for a change to the bylaw, a lengthy process that requires a public hearing, a recommendation from the Southeast Planning and Review Advisory Committee, and three readings at Tantramar council.
The request for the amendment first came to council’s attention on October 28. Planner Jenna Stewart explained the simple fix proposed by Donaher and McBride: require a minimum area of 400 square feet for dwelling units, instead of requiring minimum dimensions of 20 feet by 20 feet.
The amendment was filed under Natalie Donaher’s name, after Donaher insisted it was unfair for McBride to cover the $1500 application fee on her own.
This past Tuesday, Tantramar council approved the beginning of the process to formally make the change. (Councillor Bruce Phinney was the lone vote against advancing the process to a public hearing, and told CHMA Friday that his nay vote was meant in objection to the timing of public hearings at 3pm in the afternoon, when he says fewer residents are able to attend.)
The process could take until March 2025 to complete. Planning amendments normally come back to council for a public hearing about seven weeks after Plan 360 gets the go ahead to formally propose the change. This time, the wait is 11 weeks, because there is no scheduled Committee of Whole meeting in December, when a public hearing would normally be held. And so the date for a public hearing on the amendment has been set for January 27, 2025.
After that, there’s at least two more meetings where council will be asked to approve three different readings of the change.
McBride says the wait is particularly frustrating knowing that the same rule is not in place in neighbouring municipalities. “The bylaw is an unnecessary bottleneck,” says McBride.
And there’s not only the wait, but the uncertainty of whether or not council will agree with the seemingly uncontroversial change. “If this passes, I’ll be good to go,” says McBride, “but if it doesn’t pass… I don’t have a plan.”
Timeline depends on council meeting schedule
McBride’s wait could continue until March, unless council changes its calendar, or expedites readings of the bylaw with an additional special meeting, something that has happened previously.
Last year when developer John Lafford applied for an amendment to change the height limit for the R3 zone to make way for a 6 storey building at 131 Main Street, Mayor Andrew Black scheduled an special meeting for council to approve third and final reading of the bylaw, just eight days after they had approved the first and second readings.
More recently, Beale and Inch also benefited from a scheduled special budget meeting to have their rezoning given its third and final reading, about two weeks before the next regular council meeting.
Every day counts for McBride, because despite having all other components such as septic, water and electrical in place on her property, she can’t proceed to order her house without a Plan 360-approved building permit in hand.
“I can’t get a mortgage without getting the building permit, and I can’t get the house built until I have the mortgage,” says McBride. “So I’m stuck.”
McBride says she is currently renting a room in a house for herself and her dog, but the situation is wearing on her.
“It’s been a couple months since my building permit got declined,” says McBride, “so I’d like for this to move.”
