Sydney waterfront plan gets council's backing

Cape Breton regional council has adopted a consultant's visionfor the Sydney harbourfront development.

Ekistics Planning and Designof Dartmouth proposes extending the boardwalk,expanding the marine terminal, building more waterfront shops and buildingattractive apartmentsalong the water.

Council acceptedthe concept, but said it needs advice on how to accomplish it,since theCape Breton Regional Municipality says it has little development money.

Rob LeBlanc is president of Ekistics, the company also responsible for the new design for waterfronts in Bedford, N.S., andSummerside, P.E.I.

He says CBRM should look at what other municipalities are doing in the region.

"The Summerside waterfront planis probably half the size of Sydney and has a lot of the very same problems," he said.

"I actually took their waterfront very much similar to thisto a development conference in France just a few months ago. I had a lot of interest from developers overseas who are planning to actually come back to Summerside to look at doing development.

Plan followed a community engagement process

In January, Ekistics presented the Sydney Waterfront Plan to the steering committee prior to showing the plan to the community and council.

The plan followed a community engagement process which included interviews, a community workshop and anonline survey.

LeBlanc says it's critical that CBRM take a proactive approach to waterfront development.

He says that's the most effective way to attract investment in the project.