New beds, transit routes aimed at addressing housing shortage at Cape Breton University

The arrival of new mattresses outside Harris Residence on Monday signaled the coming start of a new academic year at Cape Breton University in Sydney, N.S.

The institution that spent much of 2022 and 2023 dealing with a housing shortage and huge student population growth will start the 2023 fall semester with 111 new beds in the MacDonald Residence on campus.

"Well, this is just a piece,” said Doug Connors, CBU’s director of housing.

Despite the well-publicized complaints about a housing crunch, the university has said a number of rooms on-campus went unused last year.

The new renovations at MacDonald Residence will include communal kitchens aimed at making life on residence more affordable.

"We know the ones that we've added in MacDonald Residence are booked, so there was a good uptake,” Connors said. “From what we ascertained from the students last year, the number one complaint or concern for them with living in what we had offered was the need for the mandatory meal plan."

Meanwhile, CBRM Transit has announced plans for new service to suburban the communities of Howie Centre, Coxheath, and Westmount.

A route between Sydney and Glace Bay will also start leaving each community on the half hour.

CBRM Mayor Amanda McDougall-Merrill says this should help students who find housing outside of Sydney at both CBU, and the new Nova Scotia Community College campus under construction downtown.

"We're all working together to manage growth,” McDougall-Merrill said. "What this also does is open up thousands of homes with the potential of rentals for people looking for rentals, and so a lot of the time people who are seeking out rentals may not have access to a car or other transportation."

The CBU Students' Union president says while the new moves don't fix everything, he's heard of fewer students than last year arriving in town without a stable housing situation.

"It's a good step towards affordable housing,” said Sahilpreet Singh Chatha. "It's not completely alright, but we're working on it and we are working hard as a students' union ourselves - we are trying our best to help students."

"This is the starting point,” Connors added. “We're still exploring. We're advocating of course, still, for the Tartan Downs project to go forward. We see that as the key cog."

The new beds on campus are expected to be ready before classes begin, while the new transit routes start Sept. 5.

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