[Editor’s Note: On April 4, the HRM Harbour East Marine Drive Community Council (HEMDC) voted unanimously to accept an HRM staff report recommending against rezoning a parcel of land along Highway 7 in Porters Lake to use as a construction & demolition (C&D) processing site. But Lawrence Bellefontaine’s Kiann Management Ltd. then appealed this decision to the Utility and Review Board (URB). Use the search engine on the Cooperator website for articles on this long struggle, which began in 2015. Just click on the looking glass in the upper right corner.]
By Deb Day
For all those who submitted a letter of concern to HRM via The Clerk and copies to the Councillors, I wanted to let you know that they will be submitted to the URB with personal information redacted.
If you decide to send something to the URB directly, you need to know that they will not be severing any information unless you submit a request asking for your personal information to be severed. That request does not automatically mean it would be severed...your reason would need to be significant; i.e., your personal safety would be jeopardized if your information was released.
What you can do is write your letter without any addresses or signatures or personal identifying info in the body of the letter and place it in the envelope. The envelopes are tossed, so it would not matter if you had a return address on it.
The URB refers to their cases as Matters. So the Matter number that you will use to access info and records is M09172 on the URB website.
We will be having another Community Conversation in June and will get back to you with dates as soon as we have everything confirmed.
--Deb Day leads the Coalition For Safe And Healthy Communities For Preston, Mineville, Lake Echo and Porters Lake