How housing could help make Blockhouse Hill in Lunenburg better

Blockhouse Hill is a beautiful place to stop for a snack on a bike ride or a walk. The view is there. Kids can play in the park. It sits above Old Town as a public space people already care about.

Beyond that, it is not yet much of a destination in its own right. Much of the hill is undeveloped, and there is little to explain what happened there or give people a reason to spend more time there.

The public conversation has mostly been about stopping a future housing project. It should also be about what Blockhouse Hill could become.

There is an opportunity to make Blockhouse Hill better: a place residents use more often and visitors seek out, while keeping the views, open space, and history that make it worth protecting. That could mean better access to the views, places to sit, safer paths, washrooms, interpretation, small-scale amenities, gathering space, and housing. Housing could help pay for those improvements. A new public process should show the public improvements, their costs, and the parts of the hill that stay protected, then show how a housing proposal would help deliver them.

Why the pause was reasonable

The Town did not cancel an approved development. It began a design process in 2023, hired MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, explored several options, and later chose one direction for further rules work. There was no buyer, no completed sale, no final development agreement, no approved building plan, and no final unit count. The Town’s own project record is clear about that sequence. The Council decision in December 2025 removed the relevant parcels from surplus designation, which ended the active sale route.

That pause was reasonable.

CBC reported that Lunenburg’s electrical grid was at capacity. At the time, the Town was planning roughly $18 million to $20 million in electrical upgrades over five years. Earlier project work also anticipated water, wastewater, and stormwater requirements. Before selling the land, the Town needed a servicing plan for the required on-site and off-site work and its timing. It also needed to say who would pay and how cost overruns would be handled. Those infrastructure limits were part of the reported reason Council stopped the process.

The Town’s earlier material referred to affordability, public space, active transportation, and heritage compatibility. The process had not yet produced the agreement that would define any of them. Before a sale, residents needed the exact public land and access map, housing and servicing terms, and maintenance responsibilities. They also needed to know how the Town would enforce those obligations.

People who wanted the hill protected were responding to a real problem: the Town was asking them to trust a future deal that did not yet exist.

Blockhouse Hill could be better than it is

Blockhouse Hill is already a public asset. Lunenburg has the chance to turn it into a better one: more useful, more accessible, and more of a reason to spend time above Old Town. The question is whether development can help do that while protecting what people care about.

The Town’s 2023 Housing Needs Report estimated a 65-unit shortfall at the end of 2022, with 120 units needed by 2027 and 170 by 2032. The Blockhouse concepts explored roughly 170 to 368 homes. No unit count was ever approved. The exercise did show that this is one of the few central public sites large enough to add many homes. The question is not only whether homes fit there. It is whether a public deal could use development to add homes and pay for a better hill without giving up the views, access, and history people value.

Homes with views over the Back Harbour probably will not be cheap. That does not make them irrelevant to the housing shortage. As I wrote in the housing fight Lunenburg keeps losing, new market-rate homes can reduce pressure elsewhere through moving chains. They can also create options for downsizing and add to the tax base. They will not house the lowest-income residents by themselves.

Because the Town owns the land, it could require some below-market homes in return for a sale or long lease. If it does, the agreement should define the eligible incomes, tenure, enforcement, and length of the restriction. It could also direct part of the value from a sale or long lease into the public improvements and long-term maintenance the hill needs.

The plan should also avoid rules that make every unit more expensive. Smaller apartments and townhouses, compact streets, and not requiring a fixed number of parking spaces for every home could reduce land and construction costs. Residents would still need a site-specific plan for parking, loading, accessible access, deliveries, and winter operations.

This is part of the larger question in the case for more homes in Nova Scotia. The supply argument does not require building on every available site. It requires evaluating the homes gained, land used, infrastructure cost, and public benefits honestly.

Leaving the hill unchanged may still be the right choice. But then Lunenburg should choose and fund a public use for it. The Town should not let a halted disposal process become a decision to leave the hill exactly as it is.

What the heritage rules require

Blockhouse Hill sits in the World Heritage buffer zone, not inside the inscribed Old Town property. Any development there would be reviewed for its effect on the town’s setting. UNESCO’s description of Old Town Lunenburg includes the grid, public spaces, relationship to the harbour, built scale, and setting.

A future proposal would need to work with those conditions. It would need public view analysis, careful massing, and a design that belongs beside Lunenburg rather than above it. It would also need to show what stays open to everyone.

Archaeology needs the same level of care. The Town’s assessment found low potential across much of the study area. It identified the former County Jail foundation and an eastern area associated with the blockhouse and military property for avoidance or further work. That assessment is public. A future design would have to protect those areas or complete the additional investigation before construction.

Before selecting a future design, the Town should publish its view analysis, massing studies, archaeological requirements, and map of the land that would remain public.

Plan the public benefit and housing together

If the Town ever reopens this question, it should begin with a public agreement rather than a land sale.

The agreement should show the permanent public pieces and how development would help pay for them. Which paths stay open? Where can people sit? How does someone using a wheelchair reach the best view? Which trees and view corridors are protected? Where does the campground fit? How does the hill connect to the town below? Who pays to look after it in January as well as July?

A raised 360-degree lookout may be worth studying. So may seating, shelter, washrooms, interpretation, event space, and a small café or food use. Any lookout would need an accessible route. A food use would need an operator, servicing, waste collection, and enough year-round or seasonal demand to survive.

Housing should be part of the same plan. Residents should be able to inspect its height, footprint, access, views, unit mix, and parking and loading assumptions, as well as the public improvements it helps pay for. The same proposal should show construction impacts, on-site and off-site infrastructure, and maintenance of the public side of the hill. Any below-market housing requirement should appear in the same public agreement.

The Town should set the public-access and heritage requirements and publish the infrastructure plan before choosing a development partner. The agreement should then show what the development pays for and how those commitments will be enforced.

Small towns have done pieces of this work

Lunenburg does not need to copy a large waterfront project to learn from other places.

In nearby Bridgewater, the Take Back the Riverbank project removed a waterfront parking structure and rebuilt King Street. It also replaced water, sanitary, and stormwater infrastructure and created Pijinuiskaq Park. It was not a housing project, and construction disrupted King Street businesses. It is still a useful local example because the Town treated the pipes, street, access, and public space as one job. Blockhouse Hill would need the same willingness to deal with the unglamorous work first.

Middlebury, Vermont’s Marble Works is another useful example, though its market and financing are different. The former industrial site now combines reused historic buildings, commercial space, homes, and an event lawn. A pedestrian bridge connects it to downtown. Lunenburg could not import its financing or market, but it can inspect how those uses share one site.

Smaller Maine communities offer another lesson. Belfast’s Harbor Walk and Rockland’s Harbor Trail have built waterfront access gradually through City work, permissions, easements, trails, benches, and park connections. Both projects took years and required agreements with property owners. Bath’s waterfront park is a smaller example of the practical pieces: docks, benches, washrooms, and farmers’-market use.

Lunenburg should use the design capacity it has

MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple has a Lunenburg office and completed B2 Lofts, a local mixed-use renovation and infill project with commercial space and apartments. The firm also held the earlier Blockhouse Hill design contract.

Solterre has a Lunenburg office and has documented nearby work in sustainable design and reuse. A new competition should be open, with local knowledge treated as one qualification rather than a substitute for procurement or independent review.

Fathom Studio designed the South Shore Regional Library in the former Lunenburg Academy and later worked on its heritage classroom exhibit. UPLAND Planning + Design Studio designed a new Academy site that included a pedestrian plaza, better access, native planting and rain gardens, wayfinding, and interpretive signage; it also led the Town’s Project Lunenburg process. DSRA has documented conservation planning and community-use options for the Academy through its predecessor firm. Those projects do not make any firm the right choice for Blockhouse Hill. They show that a future competition would have regional practices with relevant public-realm, heritage, and civic work to consider.

Lunenburg has access to people who understand its materials, streets, weather, hills, and heritage rules. The Town should use that capacity. It should invite strong local and Atlantic Canadian teams to submit plans. Each plan should show how it would improve the hill for residents and protect important public and heritage features. It should also show how homes would fit within the available infrastructure and how the public parts would be maintained.

The 2025 decision stopped the sale process before the servicing costs and land-agreement terms were clear. A future council should publish the servicing plan, protected public spaces, heritage and archaeological work, and proposed land terms so residents can judge an actual proposal.

Blockhouse Hill can add homes and become better at the same time. Its views and history should set the terms for development. A public agreement should show what development pays for: access, paths, public space, interpretation, and long-term maintenance, alongside the parts of the hill that remain protected.

That is the opportunity: housing that helps make Blockhouse Hill better, rather than simply putting buildings on it.