Don't expect shoreline development ban to end soon, P.E.I. environment minister says
CBC
It will be years before a provincial government moratorium on Prince Edward Island coastal development is lifted, according to an update provided Wednesday in the legislature.
The temporary prohibition was announced in December 2022 after concerns were raised about stone armouring put in place around a vacation home being built in Point Desroche on the Island's North Shore.
The province is now in the process of developing shoreline protection plans for 17 areas covering every part of the Island's coast.
Environment Minister Gilles Arsenault said the first of those plans won't be ready until the end of 2027. In the meantime, the restrictions will stay in place.
"We want to make sure we get it right and we're not going to rush into any final decision," Arsenault said.
"I think it's a reasonable timeline, and people seem to be connecting with my department if anything needs to occur if they are shoreline owners."
Back in 2022, then-environment minister Steven Myers implemented a moratorium on shoreline development until the department comes up with a new policy delineating what landowners can and can't do to protect their properties from coastal erosion.
Since that order, permits related to new development in the coastal buffer zone have been frozen, with some exceptions.
In late 2023, the UPEI-affiliated Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation released a report outlining 16 policy recommendations to inform the government's future decisions about coastal development.
The province commissioned the report as a roadmap to show politicians and civil servants how to mitigate damage from future weather events along the lines of the devastating post-tropical storm Fiona back in 2022.
The government was also dealing with heated questions about buffer zones and shoreline access tied to the controversial Point Deroche project. The site sparked public outrage because the massive stone armouring installed to protect the property from erosion blocks access to the public beach.
Arsenault said Friday that the first protection plans will be aimed at Lennox Island and the area stretching from Charlottetown around the southeast corner of P.E.I. up to the Boughton River.
Some politicians, including some within the governing Progressive Conservative ranks, have been critical about the length of time the restrictions have been in place.
In the legislature Friday, Liberal MLA Robert Henderson said the two and a half years that lie ahead until the first of the pilot projects is announced in 2027 constitutes an "extreme amount of time."
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