Resident blames political roadblocks for inaction to help Halifax neighborhood at 'extreme' wildfire risk

At the dead end of Wright Lake Run in the Halifax-area subdivision of Westwood Hills is a gap where a bridge used to be.

It’s there that members of the residents association had been trying for years to restore the crossing over to Crown lands in an effort to create a second exit out of the community.

Westwood Hills currently only has one way in – and one way out.

That reality came into sharp focus on May 28, when some residents trying to evacuate the area in the midst of the Tantallon wildfire found themselves blocked in by the fire.

“There’s now officially no way out of Westwood,” says resident Nick Horne in a video he took of the billowing smoke in his neighborhood.

He and others eventually get out, but, he adds, “The fact that nobody was hurt, was pure luck.”

A number of homes in the community were destroyed.

Horne says he tried for years to get the evacuation exit built, communicating with the province, the city, and Nova Scotia Power, which owns the land immediately around the old bridge.

He insists most of the pieces were in place, except for input on tonnage and other issues pertaining to the road, from Halifax’s emergency management division director, Erica Fleck.

Horne says that never came, and the project came to a halt.

“That falls on the office of EMO,” he says, “to action those items and they did nothing.”

A 2017 FireSmart assessment by a Department of Natural Resources Fire Prevention Officer found much the community to be at either “extreme” or “high” risk of wildfire, and noted “lack of egress (is) an issue when it comes to evacuations.”

A representative with Nova Scotia Power confirms the utility had been communicating with the Westwood Hills Residents Association in 2016 about the use of its land to construct a bridge for a “recreational access” road, but says the decision was made not to proceed after discussions with homeowners who were “most directly impacted” raised safety and noise concerns.

Horne says one resident who no longer lives in the area did express opposition, but believes a lack of political will was the ultimate roadblock.

“We need to really ask for accountability, from our government, and the institutions that our government employs,” he says.

Halifax's Emergency Management Division chief, Erica Fleck wasn't available for an interview Friday.

Municipal spokesperson Laura Wright told CTV by email Regional Council directed staff at its June 6 meeting to “develop a staff report on developing egress for the Westwood Hills subdivision.”

The motion to do so was introduced by the councilor for the area, Pamela Lovelace.

Friday, Lovelace penned an open letter to Premier Tim Houston calling attention to the provincial government’s role over the years in the creation of communities lacking egress.

“It will take a long time for my community to heal from this devastation,” she wrote. “Until such time, however, we need to deal with the accountability of how and why, since the 1970s, the Nova Scotia Department of Public Works approved, and continues to approve, unconnected subdivision roads without adequate egress in the HRM.”

When it comes to the history of a second exit for Westwood Hills, Lovelace says it’s a complicated issue of land ownership.

“If they (NS Power) were to choose to open up their property and have it become a public roadway with a public bridge, they would then have to transfer that land over to HRM,” she says, “currently it is private land.”

“Which also leads to provincial Crown land,” she adds, “and the province has not in any way agreed to have egress through their land, so…leadership is needed by the province of Nova Scotia.”

Lovelace says established communities like Westwood Hills and Highland Park were designed with approvals from the province as they were constructed before amalgamation.

Newer developments, such as Indigo Shores, she says, went ahead without approval from council because some were deemed “special planning areas” by the province to expedite housing.

“And if the municipality had the authority and the autonomy to make decisions, then the special planning areas wouldn’t have forced HRM to agree to an additional 150 homes in Indigo Shores when in fact we rejected it due to the fact that egress does not exist.”

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia Public Works Minister Kim Masland was asked by a reporter Friday who approves plans for a subdivision such as Indigo Shores.

“That would be HRM under their planning,” stated Masland.

But, she added, the province is communicating with the city on the issue.

“We have been working with HRM to talk about giving land to HRM so that they could provide those exits,” Masland said, “one of the things we have to think about is there is provincial land, and sometimes there is developer’s lands in between.”

Lovelace adds it’s also a matter of funding.

“It’s Crown land, so let’s work together to figure out how to transfer Crown land over to the municipality so then we can begin to plan these egress routes, and, I would hope, that the provincial government would fund them,” she says.

At the end of the day, what Horne and other residents want is an assurance they will see another exit built soon for their community.

“I see no action on this right now,” he says, “a staff report from HRM that’s going to take two years plus… is not going to help us.”

“The building blocks are in place, the proposals are there…HRM needs to pick up where (we) left off and they need to make this happen.”