Activist defends public’s use of disputed property
Citizen’s legal challenge to block Cabot Links construction underway
A legal challenge to block Cabot Links ULC from building nine high-end cottages on land it owns began Tuesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Port Hawkesbury.
Activist and filmmaker Neal Livingston of nearby Riverville is asking that the court declare the 2.62-hectare property in Inverness as “dedicated for public use” because, he argues, it has historically been used as a park by members of the community.
“We the public still used (the property as a park),” testified Livingston under crossexamination by John Keith, the lawyer for Cabot Links.
“Did you just say, ‘We the public?’” asked Keith.
To which Livingston, who says he is making the motion on behalf of the historic public interest in using the property, replied in the affirmative.
Livingston was being questioned over a phone call he claims to have made to the property’s former owners, Cape Bald Packers, in 2011 in which he said if they were going to sell the land he and a group of local residents might be willing to purchase it to maintain public access.
“Mr. Livingston, if you have names of people I am interested in hearing them, not ‘We the public’” said Keith.
The cross examination saw Keith and Livingston go over his long interest in the property since the latter first visited it in 1972 while touring Cape Breton with his brother.
When the municipality sold the land that had once been part of a coal mining operation to Cape Bald Packers for a lobster and crab shipping facility in 1986, Livingston claims to have called that company and asked if they could instead get land across the road for their building.
According to Livingston the company refused, but didn’t prevent area residents from parking and having picnics on the property.
Though neither the applicant nor the defense attorneys were willing to comment on Tuesday, during an interview last week Livingston’s lawyer Derek Simon explained their motion to the Chronicle Herald.
“It’s a concept in law considered public dedication,” said Simon.
“So if you show an intention to offer land for public use either explicitly or through your actions and the public accepts that offer, then you have obligation to maintain that.”
Livingston was further questioned Tuesday on erroneous statements he made during an interview with the Cape Breton Post in which he claimed that a portion of the property had at one time been zoned for a park.
He admitted that he shouldn’t have made those statements because he didn’t know at the time what the property was zoned. It was actually originally zoned marine industrial, then changed to waterfront development and finally to commercial tourism by the Municipality of the County of Inverness to allow Cabot to build the cottages.
Construction on the cottages was supposed to be occur last fall but was delayed due to Livingston’s court application.
Four more days are scheduled for the court hearing.