Lunenburg's utility upgrades should unlock housing, not delay it

Lunenburg has approved almost $21 million in electric utility work over five years. The plan says the upgrades will improve reliability and create room for new customers and larger loads.

That is not just a maintenance program. It is an investment in the town's ability to grow.

Residents should be told what growth it is meant to support.

The Town does not need to promise that every parcel can be developed. It should connect each major infrastructure project to a practical result: which areas gain capacity, when they gain it, what further study a housing proposal will need, and who will pay for the connection.

Without that link, “infrastructure” becomes a vague reason to delay housing even while ratepayers fund the capacity that could make it possible.

The electric plan is unusually clear about growth

Lunenburg owns its electric utility. Its approved 2026–31 capital plan totals $20.987 million. The first year includes $2.927 million in feeder work, along with other capital spending.

The plan identifies overloaded winter conditions on the Knock Lane and Blue Rocks feeders. It calls for a new substation on Green Street, conversion of existing feeders to a higher voltage, upgrades at Starr Street, and a stronger backup connection.

The Green Street substation is planned to come online in 2030. After the feeder upgrades and conversion, the plan says available capacity should roughly triple on the 4.16-kilovolt feeders and double on the 5.88-kilovolt feeders. It says the system should then be able to accommodate growth and additional load with very little impact.

Those projections should become part of the Town's housing discussion now, not in 2030.

The next public update should show which service areas each phase affects, how much capacity it is expected to add, and what kinds of new load that capacity could support. That will not replace a project-specific connection study. It will tell Council where a proposal is plausible and where it is premature.

Power is only one test

A new home needs more than an electrical connection.

Drinking-water capacity depends on supply, treatment, storage, pressure, fire flow, and the pipes serving the site. Lunenburg's approved 2026–27 Water Utility capital budget is $777,000. The largest item is a $586,000 bypass that would keep water flowing while the storage tank is offline. Other work covers meters, hydrants, services, design, and future transmission-main planning.

That work improves resilience. It does not, by itself, show how many homes can be served on a particular street.

Wastewater has two separate parts: getting sewage from a property to the plant and treating it once it arrives. The Town is proceeding with phased treatment-plant and collection-system work. A plant can have treatment room while one pipe is constrained, or a local pipe can be adequate while the plant needs an upgrade.

Stormwater is different again. New roofs and pavement change where water moves during heavy rain. A project may need on-site storage, new drainage, or downstream work even when its water and sewer connections are possible.

Road access, fire access, and telecom matter too. Calling all of this “infrastructure” hides which problem is actually stopping a project.

A constraint should come with an answer

When Council is told that infrastructure prevents housing, the public record should answer five questions:

1. Which system is constrained?
2. Is the finding town-wide, neighbourhood-level, or specific to the proposed site?
3. What upgrade or design change resolves it?
4. Is that work funded and scheduled?
5. Who should pay, and who carries the risk of an overrun?

Sometimes the correct answer will be to wait. Sometimes a smaller first phase, a different connection, fewer parking spaces, on-site stormwater work, or a later construction date will solve the problem.

Council should turn a general objection into a testable condition.

That is especially relevant to Blockhouse Hill. The 2024 Visioning Report includes preliminary water, wastewater, and stormwater analysis, but no equivalent electrical-capacity review. When Council removed the land from surplus status in December 2025, Mayor Jamie Myra cited unavailable infrastructure. The exact current gap and the work needed to reopen the process remain unresolved. A separate article on the site explains the engineering already done and the narrower questions that remain.

Who pays depends on who benefits

For work inside a development and a connection built only for that project, requiring the developer to pay is a reasonable starting point.

Lunenburg's Street Services Extension Policy generally puts extension costs on the applicant. It also allows public cost sharing where there is a clear wider benefit, capped at the lower of 50 per cent or $200,000.

A larger main or feeder may serve existing residents, unlock several sites, or replace infrastructure the Town would soon have had to renew anyway. Making the first project pay the entire bill can stop useful growth and leave the public upgrade undone.

The Town should separate four costs in every major proposal:

• on-site work needed only by the project;
• the connection to the public system;
• replacement or repair the Town already needed; and
• extra capacity that benefits future growth.

Once those costs are visible, Council can negotiate a fair split instead of relying on slogans.

Publish a service-area sequence

I do not think Lunenburg needs a coloured map that appears to guarantee every lot is buildable. Zoning, ownership, topography, heritage, environmental conditions, and detailed engineering will still matter.

It does need a public service-area sequence.

For each major capital phase, the Town could report:

• the system and area affected;
• the current problem;
• the work approved, funded, tendered, underway, or complete;
• the expected change in reliability or capacity;
• the likely housing or commercial growth the change is intended to support; and
• the remaining project-level studies.

That would make the capital budget easier to understand. It would also help landowners and housing organizations work on sites that have a realistic route to approval.

Lunenburg needs more than a permit target to address its housing shortage. Rebuilding utilities without saying what the new capacity is for leaves the same gap.

The Town is spending real money to make growth possible. Its housing policy should be built around using that capacity well.