COMPANY HOUSES
Kameron Collieries builds subdivision and homes for workers in Coxheath
Owners of the Donkin Mine are putting down roots in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
According to the Nova Scotia Real Estate View Point website, on July 1, 2017, Kameron Collieries purchased two parcels of land totaling 6.2 acres at 875 Coxheath Rd. bordering Blacketts Lake for $300,000. The mining company has since built a subdivision called Prospect Drive where they are building modular homes for their mine managers.
The website also details on July 14, 2017, Kameron Collieries purchased a large house and garage situated on 7.77 acres at 845 Coxheath Rd. —adjacent to Prospect Drive — for $1 million. All the properties remain listed as being owned by Kameron Collieries.
Sandra Bobyk, development officer with the CBRM’s planning department, said there are nine building lots and an extra piece of land in the Prospect Drive subdivision.
“The new road and the nine residential building lots were approved Nov. 16, 2017.”
Bobyk said, with such a project, design drawings are submitted and CBRM’s engineering department reviews the plans and conducts all necessary inspections during construction of the roadway to ensure it’s built to a public standard.
Through the final plan of the subdivision, the street itself — Prospect Drive —has been turned over to the CBRM and is considered a new CBRM public road, she said.
Each lot in the subdivision is also serviced with its own onsite sewage disposal system because municipal sewer is not available in this area.
On the Nova Scotia Land Registry website, eight of the lots in the subdivision are assessed at $25,000 and a ninth at $34,400. Four new modular homes have already been constructed in the subdivision.
Bobyk said the name Prospect Drive was requested by the owner and approved by the CBRM. When a new subdivision is built a request for a name can be submitted to the CBRM civic address co-ordinator. The co-ordinator would ensure there aren’t any similar street names within the CBRM or even street names that sound the same.
“The name has to be unique. There are certain criteria proposed street names have to meet through the civic addressing policy.”
The nine lots on Prospect Drive end in a cul-de-sac on a wetland isthmus at Blacketts Lake.
Officials with the Nova Scotia Department of Environment said the driveway in its present form in the Prospect Drive subdivision did not require a wetland alteration approval because a wetland biologist assessed the site — a marshy fringe of Sydney River that transitions to a shrub swamp — and determined the part of the roadway that was rebuilt is in the shrub swamp portion. The alteration of a shrub swamp does not require an approval if it is less 600 square metres in size, which is the case with the footprint of the roadway in question.
On Monday two companies were at the subdivision including Northern Contracting of Sydney Mines working on preparing a driveway for paving.
“We paved the road into the subdivision two years ago,” said labourer Scott Aucoin.
Aucoin said their company has since paved two driveways in the subdivision and will be paving two more in the near future.
The company is expected to do as many as five or six more in the subdivision as more homes are built.
Highland Landscaping was also in the subdivision Monday, working on the lawn at another property.
The house and 7.7 acres at 845 Coxheath Road owned by Kameron Collieries— which is adjacent to Prospect Drive — is assessed at $567,300.
An email from the communications spokesperson for Kameron Collieries, Donkin Mine vice-president Shannon Campbell, said he did not wish to comment and did not want to bring attention to these properties at this time.