Following a public hearing at a regular council meeting last week, council for the Municipality of the County of Antigonish decided not to accept proposed amendments to the West River Antigonish Harbour and Central Antigonish Plan Area Municipal Planning Strategies, Land Use Bylaws, generalized future land use maps and zoning maps to incorporate updated flood mapping and related policies and regulations.
Warden Nicholas MacInnis said the flood mapping began years ago, with flow gauges for the work on hand to measure post tropical storm Fiona in 2022. MacInnis said they took the information from the flood mapping study and developed a flood map for West River and South River watersheds. He said it is now up to council on how to proceed.
Flooding in Monastery from post-Tropical Storm Fiona, 2022 (Communications Nova Scotia photo)
MacInnis said there were a lot of questions coming from council after looking at the study, such as the effects on home insurance and mortgages. With that many what-ifs and unknowns, he said council did not feel they had enough answers to proceed. He also said it is important to note the flood plain map projects were completed under various climate change scenarios and the scenario they chose to use was the most extreme climate change event.
Prior to the public hearing last week, council held two public engagement sessions on the matter