New apartments to help address lack of St. Stephen housing

A private developer plans to start work in January on building a 66‑apartment residential building on the site of the old Border Area Community Arena in St. Stephen. The Municipal District of St. Stephen posted the announcement online October 3 that The Dock Inc. headed by Tressa Bevington of St. Andrews will undertake this project.

In August, David Hickey, provincial minister responsible for the New Brunswick Housing Corporation, announced that a five‑unit modular affordable housing project on Main Street would likely welcome tenants this fall, part of 127 additional public housing units under construction at 13 sites across the province. Further, four locations in St. Stephen owned by Starshine Properties Ltd. are set to go up for public auction on October 17 for unpaid taxes, raising the hope that new owners could invest money to reopen these buildings to paying tenants.

These announcements possibly indicate that St. Stephen is making a dent in the need for more housing, but the fact that, at the September committee‑of‑the‑whole meeting, municipal district councillors talked about the possible need for a bylaw controlling tents on private property shows that this border community still has some distance to cover making sure that everybody has a decent place to live.

Bevington says in an email that her company will acquire the arena property on King Street and begin tearing it down after Christmas. Construction will begin in January with the aim of opening Dock Apartments by the fall of 2027, according to a news release. The Border Area Community Arena, built in the 1970s next door to St. Stephen Elementary School, shut down when the new Garcelon Civic Center opened in 2014. Efforts to find a new purpose for the old arena -- for recreation, relocating town hall there and other possibilities -- failed. The municipality has been using it for storage.

The Dock Apartments will be Bevington's fourth project in Charlotte County, starting with the 36‑unit Anchors Landing for seniors that opened in St. Andrews in 2017, followed by the 50‑unit Beacon Waterfront Apartments in St. Stephen opened in 2020, and the 42‑unit Compass Housing in St. Andrews last year.

The Dock Apartments will feature modern energy‑efficient units designed to meet the needs of a diverse range of residents, from young professionals to seniors seeking accessible living, with a mix of studio, one-, two- and three‑bedroom units, according to the release.

Mayor Allan MacEachern says, "By partnering with a local developer who understands our community, we are not only revitalizing a prominent piece of land but also creating much‑needed housing that will support our growing population and local economy."

"We're excited to join forces with the Municipal District of St. Stephen on this important project. Our goal is to create modern, high‑quality housing that residents can truly be proud of. Partnering again with the Municipal District of St. Stephen, while working alongside local trades, makes this project especially meaningful," Bevington says.

The release credits municipal Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Renaud and Future St. Stephen President Rivers Corbett for bringing this project together.

Years ago, the land on which the old arena stands was part of the St. Stephen fairgrounds. The provincial government expropriated it in 1968 to build the new elementary school. In 1975, 2.89 acres of the school property was leased to the town for 99 years for the new arena. The former town of St. Stephen bought the arena property from the provincial government for $60,300 in 2021. Details on transferring the property to The Dock Inc. and the municipality's involvement in the project have yet to be announced. Bevington says that the land will be transferred to her company and the project will be built with private capital.

"We are focused on affordable rates for the area. The rent structure will be similar to what we did in St. Andrews with the cost of inflation added in," she says. "There won't be any formal rent subsidies offered. There are many great government programs that tenants can access if they are needed, but they need to go through the province for those programs." Details on the rent structure are being worked on, she says.

Starshine Properties another story

Starshine Properties is another story. This company owned by Annette Penkala of Calgary, Alberta, bought about 20 rental properties in St. Stephen in 2020 and 2021. The owner seems to exercise little control over the properties; they have fallen into disrepair and provincial authorities have boarded up at least three of them under the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) legislation for suspected drug activity. Squatters have moved into some, while legitimate tenants in others do not always know to whom to pay their rent. The Starshine Properties building at the corner of Union and Rushton streets burned last year.

On October 17, Starshine Properties at 4491/2 Milltown Boulevard, 94 Queensway, 47 Elm Street and on Route 740 in Heathland go up for bids at 1 p.m. at the Delta Hotel in Saint John.

New owners should be an improvement, but it might mean upset for some tenants with not many options. Heather Boles hopes she and her family can stay in the rear apartment at 47 Elm Street, one of the four Starshine Properties buildings up for sale on October 17. The power and water are disconnected from the apartments in the front part of the house and former bakery, but Boles still lives in the apartment she has called home for 18 years at the back of the structure. She pays her water and power bills and hands her rent cheques to the provincial authorities under the Residential Tenancies Act while the legal status of the property gets sorted out. She understands the building needs substantial investment likely to affect her rent. She says that one person who might bid on the property will possibly provide her another apartment during renovations, but she does like her back yard at 47 Elm.

She is better off than a woman who identifies herself as Jen living in a tent at 34 Rose Street along with her dog. She says her cousin who owns the property let her set up her tent and other belongings. The tent is close to the site of the garage that burned and damaged the house, which has no power meter. Her cousin is working on the house, according to Jen, who says that she stayed in a tent in the woods in the Milltown area last winter and was not sure of her plans with the season advancing.

This situation on Rose Street apparently sparked the discussion at the council committee meeting where MacEachern said that he took a call from an upset neighbour not happy with what was happening next door. Fire Chief and Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Sean Morton said that he visited the property earlier in the day and found the situation not as drastic as some people portrayed, but stated, "I'm not dismissing those fears [of neighbours]. They are absolutely real, but it's very complicated."

Tents started popping up in St. Stephen about the same time that Starshine Properties acquired a large number of apartment buildings, whether the two things are connected or not. The Lighthouse Lodge shelter opened late last year, providing a place for many people without homes to get out of the cold, but some still stay in tents especially in the warm season. The municipality no longer allows tents on publicly owned land, but, MacEachern and Morton say, there is no bylaw to stop private owners from allowing tents on their properties.

Council could enact a bylaw controlling tents, but the mayor said it would have to worded so as not to stop young people from sleeping out in tents, or weekend visitors to stay in a tent behind a friend's house, for example.

Morton argued that a bylaw would treat the symptom, not the problem. "A tent bylaw often addresses the visible symptom, tents in public spaces, rather than the underlying issue, lack of affordable housing and supports, which can create more harm than good," he said.

Telling people to remove a tent from pubic property would force them to find a willing private landowner, "and that's exactly what's happened in this case," Morton said, contending that a tent bylaw "will disproportionately target unhoused individuals." Defining "tent" is a problem, and people could get around it by moving into a car, baby barn or other inadequate accommodations. There are legal and constitutional issues related to the right to a place to live, says Morton, who repeated his support for a designated encampment site with proper amenities and rules in St. Stephen.

A council committee cannot make binding decisions. MacEachern and councillors say the issue needs more thought.