CBRM planner testifies at regulatory hearing into proposed Big Pond RV park

An appeal of a rezoning decision to allow aproposed recreational vehicle park in Big Pond, Cape Breton, is heading into its third day.

The first two days of the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board hearing were dominated by area residents opposed to the development.

But on Thursday afternoon, CBRM municipal planner Karen Neville was called to give evidence.

She told the hearing she recommendedcouncil rezone the property. Thatrecommendation was strictly based on policies laid out inthe municipal planning strategy, she said.

The key policyallows councillors to include provisions to reduce concerns about noise, dust, traffic and appearance,Neville said.

"They're to look at these criteria in ways to mitigate how this development would affect the surrounding area," she said. "The policy doesn't say eliminate. It says to mitigate."

The morning included three witnesses opposed to the RV park, but most of that time was taken up with testimony from Ed MacIntyre, who lives near the land where the development could go.

He told the hearing that, at first, he thought the RV park would be OK, until he found out the scale was much larger than first suggested.

MacIntyre said the community was told the initial plan was for 211 sites, but it later went to council and had "ballooned" to 605.

"I thought we were hoodwinked," MacIntyre said. "That's the first thing that came to my mind. When I was given the bill of goods, I believed it."

When asked about that discrepancy, Neville said she used the municipal planning strategy to recommend against enlarging the RV park.

"I did not recommend that council approve Phase 2 and Phase 3," she said.

"Given the topography, I didn't feel there was a manner in which that we could address visual compatibility in an appropriate manner. So I only recommended that council approve Phase 1 of the development."

The hearing is expected to wrap up on Friday.