STRAIT AREA - Affordable housing is emerging as a key issue in the Nova Scotia provincial election campaign that's due to wrap up on August 17, but two local municipal leaders and their councils have placed the issue at the top of their agendas well before the writ was dropped.

With this in mind, TELILE 24/7 host Adam Cooke invited Richmond County Warden Amanda Mombourquette and Port Hawkesbury Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing local affordable housing developments, in the first-ever TELILE 24/7 Municipal Roundtable.

Chisholm-Beaton is the outgoing chair of the Strait Richmond Housing Matters Coalition, while Mombourquette is the incoming co-chair of the organization, which issued a multi-pronged call to action to the municipal and provincial governments in the run-up to the July election call in Nova Scotia.

Both noted that the housing issue must be shared by all three levels of government and any private developers that wish to set up shop in either Richmond County or Port Hawkesbury. Mombourquette suggested that the issue is not only a matter of concern for low-income residents struggling to find living conditions that meet their needs, but also those who wish to move back to the Strait area for personal and professional reasons.

This issue hit home for Richmond County earlier this year, when an affordable housing proposal in Arichat failed to proceed because the municipality's aging water and sewer infrastructure would not meet the project's needs. At the same time, the county began the assessment process for a former school building in the community of Evanston at the request of a local physician-recruitment committee, which suggested that the structure could provide housing for incoming doctors and nurses working at the nearby Strait-Richmond Hospital.

In Port Hawkesbury, Mayor Chisholm-Beaton was pleased to see a recent $1.2-million provincial commitment to restoration of the Breton Apartments complex, on the premise that at least twelve of its apartments be designated affordable-housing units. However, Chisholm-Beaton stressed that her council's work is far from over as they seek other opportunities for similar developments around the town.