Sprawl hits tiny seaside town
‘It is not the same once you get big’
Aiden Carey is 67 and has lived in Witless Bay for his entire life, he said, a life that featured a childhood full of adventure. Fishing for trout, catching cod and catching heck, on occasion, for running loose in the wild spaces surrounding the picturesque seaside community about 30 minutes south of St. John’s, N.L.
“We had more freedom back then,” says Carey, who runs the Witless Bay Suites with his wife, Sheila, catering to tourists drawn to a place famous the world over for its abundance of puffins.
“We got a couple housing developments here now, and I am worried, as far as the tourists go. It is not the same once you get big, because the tourists want to come to a village and be by the ocean, and if things here keep growing the way they are we are going to lose that.”
For now, the puffins and ocean views of Witless Bay remain, although a tourist craving a hike in the woods where Carey ran amok as a kid is just as likely to spy a backhoe and a sprouting monster home as they are the bird often referred to as the “clown of the sea,” because of its colourful beak.
For decades, the narrative among the province’s towns and villages has been one of loss: The cod left, the young people left, entire fishing villages got uprooted, while retirees and hangers-on reminisced about better days.
But a new story is emerging in Witless Bay, and a handful of other small communities around St. John’s. It is one of building booms and booming populations, and the tension that rapid growth can produce between those who prefer things the way they are (or were) and those who view every new business opened and home built as progress.
The population of Witless Bay was 1,167 in 2011, according to Statistics Canada, a number that ballooned to 1,619 by 2016, for an increase of 452 people — or almost 40 per cent.
Mayor Sébastien Després moved to Witless Bay seven years ago. He was busy beltsanding kitchen counters on a recent morning — “part of the building boom,” he said, chuckling — at the old general store on Harbour Road he and his wife, Heather, converted into a music studio. Després teaches at Memorial University, though much of his spare time is devoted to his non-paying political job in a politically charged environment.
“The boom is showing no signs of slowing down,” he said. “There is a lot of pushback from the developers — the town wants to protect the interests of the current residents by increasing lot sizes, making sure that subdivisions are well-situated — and the developers want to make the lot sizes as small as possible to maximize profits.”
It is a devilish bargain: growth grows the tax base, enhancing services and ensuring the town doesn’t die off, as many have. But growth puts pressure on the local water table. Witless Bay is not hooked into the public water system. Homes run off deep wells and septic beds, an arrangement that keeps municipal taxes low. (A resident with a $500,000 home pays $4000 in taxes to cover their garbage collection, road upkeep and fire protection services.) Growing to a point that requires piping in public water would bankrupt the community, according to Després.
“Growth is fantastic,” he says. “But there is such a thing as that thin red line that you shouldn’t cross.”
But David Carter, a Witless Bay born-and-raiseddeveloper, isn’t so sure that there is. Carter’s Emerald Estates subdivision is about 60-per-cent complete and will ultimately include 160 new homes.
“Everybody has got different opinions on development and I have heard every one,” he says, chuckling. “We are adjacent to the ball field. For years it wasn’t being used, because there weren’t any small kids left.
"Now there is life here again. There are small kids everywhere.”
Most of the homeowners in Emerald Estates have jobs in the offshore oil industry or in Alberta. In this model, Dad goes away to work and Mom raises the kids, and both parents want big-city amenities without big-city hassles. Witless Bay fulfils those wants, and so the boom continues.
“We have all these young families, and so what are we going to tell these kids in 20 years — see you later, there is no more development?” Carter says.
Mayor Després and council meet Tuesday to consider the latest development proposal: a Tim Hortons franchise, the town’s first. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Aiden Carey went trout fishing and brought home four beauties to fry up for dinner.
“I am small town,” Carey said. “People are looking for bucks here, and I am looking for the bucks, too — but I am looking for them in a smaller way.”
EVERYBODY HAS GOT DIFFERENT OPINIONS ON DEVELOPMENT AND I HAVE HEARD EVERY ONE.