AT A GLANCE
ifairclough@herald.ca @iancfairclough
Kentville is getting provincial and federal funding for a $9.8-million project that will allow the town to open up hundreds of acres of land for development.
The three levels of government are splitting the costs of the work to install new water and wastewater infrastructure and replace an existing water tank along the Donald E. Hiltz Connector Road, which will then be able to be extended from the end of the Kentville Business Park to Prospect Avenue. The road is currently roughly cut from where the road ends at Valley Waste Management to the water tower on Prospect Avenue.
Doing so will open up the undeveloped land for housing and commercial use.
“These funds give us the opportunity to build an amazing future for our town,” Kentville Mayor Sandra Snow said at the May 19 announcement.
“It’s an incredible opportunity.”
She said the undeveloped land available to the town is greater than the area that has already been developed, and she expects the population to double to about 14,000 people in the next 25 years.
The Donald E. Hiltz Connector will be a collector road for the new developed areas, she said, which will be a combination of residential and commercial properties.
By 2030, she expects the growth will be happening “by leaps and bounds.”
“We’ve seen growth of about five per cent a year, and then COVID hit and it was seven and 10 per cent that we were looking at,” she said. “The best part of all of this is that our demographic is changing. The town now has a median age of 44 years, which is the same as the province.”
This past winter, work was completed on Miners Landing, a four-building development on the town’s east end with more than 200 apartments. All units in each building were rented before construction was complete.
A look at the funding for the extension of the Donald E. Hiltz Connector Road in Kentville.
$3,893,200. $3,244,333 $2,595,467.
Two townhouse developments are also nearing completion.
Kings-Hants MP Kody Blois said the town is growing by leaps and bounds, and “we need to make sure there is an opportunity for growth.
We’re laying the foundation for the future of Kentville.”
He said when looking at the growth of the Annapolis Valley, “we need the infrastructure to keep pace. It’s a good thing that people want to live here, but we need to make sure there are the wraparound services.”
Federal funding has also been provided this year for previously announced water and stormwater upgrades in Wolfville and Canning, and a new interchange on Highway 101 in Waterville.
“We are making joint investments that are going to drive our communities forward,” Blois said.
Kings North MLA John Lohr said the project will open a substantial amount of land for housing and development, and he hopes some of that will include affordable housing.
“With the opening of new land, it creates new wealth and new opportunities,” said Lohr, who is the province's Municipal Affairs and Housing minister.
The growth will be good for the local economy, he added.
“We see Kentville continuing to grow and the area continuing to grow, and this is an important part of enabling that growth by providing the water and sewer connections that the connector road will need.”