P.E.I. has plenty of work to do on coastal protections, climate researchers say

Current legislation to protect Prince Edward Island's coastlines doesn't go far enough, provincial politicians were told on Thursday. 

Researchers with the Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation appeared before a legislative standing committee to talk about the state of P.E.I.'s coasts.

In late 2023, the UPEI-affiliated centre released a report outlining 16 policy recommendations to inform the government's future decisions about coastal development. 

Hope Parnham, a consultant with the centre as well as a landscape architect and planner based in Charlottetown, said P.E.I.'s legislation isn't sufficient to prevent development in hazardous areas — and that's been made clear in the aftermath of the Island being slammed by a post-tropical storm in 2022. 

"We have been building for the past two years since Fiona in the same places that were impacted," Parnham said. "We have rebuilt on the same footprints that were flooded, and we have allowed people to continue to build on undersized coastal lots that are subject to erosion."

Doing coastal management plans in the absence of land-use planning is really only half of the job.— Hope Parnham, Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation consultant

The provincial government commissioned the centre's report as a roadmap to show politicians and civil servants how to mitigate damage from future weather events like the devastating 2022 Atlantic storm.

The province was also dealing with heated questions about buffer zones and shoreline access as a high-profile development was being built at Point Deroche on the North Shore. The site sparked public outrage because the massive stone armouring installed to protect the property blocks access to the public beach.

During Thursday's committee meeting, Green MLA Peter Bevan-Baker asked whether restrictions on building close to coastlines are being applied evenly across the Island. 

"I see in other developments, and I'm thinking particularly here about Point Deroche, where those restrictions were not applied as consistently as [another development] on the South Shore," he said. 

While Parnham replied that those permitting issues fall under the province's purview, she said the P.E.I. government needs to work with municipalities to develop land-use and shoreline management plans.

"The province does not have a land-use plan and does not have thorough land-use planning development regulations, so we're trying to fix a planning problem through the Department of Environment," she said. 

"Doing coastal management plans in the absence of land-use planning is really only half of the job." 

Mailouts coming to coastal residents 

The centre's report urges the province to develop shoreline management plans for 17 different segments of the coast, called littoral cells, each with its own strategy to manage environmental, social and economic conditions.

The government has committed to implementing all 16 of the report's recommendations.  

An August update from the province said officials are prioritizing nine of the recommendations, including the development of shoreline management plans.

"We are finishing up the process of developing a targeted mailout to coastal residents on some critical information on coastal properties. It should be in mailboxes this fall," a spokesperson for the Environment Department said in a statement to CBC News. 

"This is just one step in the outreach, which also began with more general-information digital ads earlier this year, and we are placing informational materials in provincial building permit sites and Access P.E.I. locations."