Shediac campground dispute settled out of court

A legal dispute that had putthe controversial Camping Shediac project on hold for more than two years has been resolved.

Camping Oceanic leases land from the Anglican Parish of Shediac and opposed the parish's plans to also lease land to the proposed 750-site Camping Shediac, which is to be located 1.3 kilometres away on the same road.

Camping Oceanic has aclause in its 2007 agreement that the parish would not lease adjacentland to another campground operator without the consent of Camping Oceanic owner Dave Maltais.

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The dispute ended up in court and put development of Camping Shediac, which includes local MLA Victor Boudreau among its developers, on hold.

However, on Monday evening an out-of-court settlement was reached between Camping Oceanic and the Anglican parish, clearing the way for Camping Shediac to begin construction.

Confidentiality clause

Maltaiswas pleased with the outcome, but could not provide many details due to a confidentiality clause in the agreement.

"Our goal was to protect [Camping Oceanic] in the eventuality that a competitor would build, protect against any loss of revenues, things like that, we feel that the settlement protects us," he said.

"We had to postpone certain growth that we want to do with our business, now that this is over we can proceed with our own projects,"Maltaissaid.

The nature of those projects will be announced sometime in the future.

Maltaissaid he had no dealings with developers.

The developers of Camping Shediac and the Anglican parish could not be reached for comment.

Last week, Shediaccouncil granted the developers' request for a three-year extension to start the project because it was being stalled by the legal dispute.