Province scratches plan to build new jail in Fredericton
Government now looking at unidentified location outside the city
The announcement came in a three-sentence news release sent late Monday afternoon.
CBC tried to reach the Department of Justice and Public Safety by phone and email, but no response was received by publication time.
The release says the government is looking at a location outside the city "to minimize any perceived impact upon residents."
A map of the proposed location presented to the City of Fredericton's planning advisory committee in December 2022. (City of Fredericton)
That location was not identified in the release.
The $42-million jail was originally supposed to be built near the Vanier Industrial Park on Fredericton's south side.
Past controversy
The City of Fredericton approved the zoning amendment in late January, but not without pushback from community members.
Before the rezoning request went to council, Fredericton's planning advisory committee recommended council reject the rezoning.
City
councillors voted 7-4 vote in favour of the rezoning for the new jail
in late January. The decision was met with heckling from spectators at
that meeting. (Aidan Cox/CBC)
During the first and second reading of the motion, around 100 people filled the viewing gallery. At that council meeting, concerns brought forward by speakers included fears that a jail could hurt the property values of nearby homes, while some said they would no longer feel safe with a jail located a few kilometres from where they and their children live.
Other speakers weren't against the proposed location, but were against the use of jails in general as a means to rehabilitate criminal offenders.
At the third and final reading of the motion, the 7-4 vote in favour of the rezoning was met with heckling from some of the roughly 75 spectators.
CBC requested an interview with the city, but was provided with a statement. A city spokesperson said the province has made the decision and "any questions about the rationale should be directed to the provincial government."
The province announced plans to build a 109-bed jail in December 2021, setting aside $2.5 million in the 2022-23 capital budget to plan and design the new building and acquire the land where it would be built.
In a news release announcing the project, then-public safety minister Ted Flemming said the system was stretched to capacity and that "crimes requiring incarceration have been trending up, including trafficking, production and distribution of controlled substances."
Last year, CBC News asked the province for all records that detail the need for a new jail, such as those that discuss the business case for the jail or capacity issues within existing correctional centres.
The Department of Justice and Public Safety refused to provide any records in response to that request, saying all the records are exempted under sections of the right-to-information law that protect confidential cabinet documents and advice to a cabinet minister.
The department also refused to provide copies to the provincial ombud, Marie-France Pelletier, whose office handles complaints about right to information, but later changed its mind and gave the ombud copies of records detailing the business case.
Fredericton to seek more than $100K in costs associated with cancelled jail plan
Mayor Kate Rogers says city spent staff time and money on preparing for jail project
Those costs came from site preparation and staff time used up to accommodate the government's proposal to buy 25 acres from the city, then rezone the land so the province could build a new $42-million corrections centre.
"Most of it is just development costs and prepping of the land," Rogers said Thursday.
"Clearly, a lot of planning time also went into making this reality," she said, citing the required rezoning, which had to go through the planning advisory committee as well.
"So there was a lot of that type of staff time."
On Monday, four months after the city gave the province the approval to build a jail, the Department of Justice and Public Safety issued a brief news release saying it would no longer build it in Fredericton.
That process had started last fall, with councillors agreeing to sell the province a plot of city-owned land to build it in the Vanier Industrial Park.
The
city was planning to sell the provincial government a piece of land in
the Vanier Industrial Park for a jail to be built on and had already
approved the necessary rezoning for the project. (Google Earth)
The land then had to be rezoned, which involved consideration by the city's planning advisory committee, which recommended against granting the rezoning.
In January, the decision came to councillors, who heard a myriad of submissions from the public, with some for the jail, and many — primarily in the Lincoln Heights neighbourhood — against it.
Councillors ultimately voted in favour of granting the rezoning, which was required for the land sale to go through.
In its news release, the Department of Justice and Public Safety said it cancelled its plan over concerns raised by residents, adding that it is now looking at a location outside the city to minimize any perceived impact on residents.
Initially announced in fall 2021, the proposal to build a jail in Fredericton was something Rogers welcomed, citing positive economic spin-offs expected from the new jobs that would be created to staff it.
On Thursday, Rogers avoided sharing her personal reaction to the province's latest decision.
"We will have to find ways now to find those economic spin-offs in other ways, which we will do," she said.
"These things happen, and I think that is part of our role as leaders, is accepting that, and... making sure that whatever tax-payer money went in to trying to make this facility a reality that, that those costs are covered."
Rogers said she hasn't spoken with provincial officials about their willingness to reimburse the city for costs associated with the jail proposal.
"I'm quite certain we have a very productive working relationship," she said. "I'm quite certain that will all fall out as it should."
CBC News asked for an interview with Justice and Public Safety Minister Kris Austin Thursday but did not receive one before deadline.
Justice
and Public Safety Minister Kris Austin's department issued a statement
saying residents' concerns prompted the decision to no longer build a
jail in Fredericton. (Patrick Richard/CBC)
Austin hasn't yet spoken publicly about the decision to no longer build a jail in Fredericton.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Premier Blaine Higgs said "significant opposition" to the Fredericton location was the reason his government opted out of the plan.
He said the province was still looking at other locations where the jail could potentially be built instead.
Surrounding municipal councils have since made pitches to the province to have the jail built in their communities.
Those include Grand Lake, which Austin's riding is included in, as well as Arcadia, which is part of Gagetown-Petitcodiac MLA Ross Wetmore's riding.
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Grand Lake makes pitch to get new jail after province withdraws from deal with Fredericton
Mayor Kevin Nicklin says Minto's industrial park is an ideal site for $42M jail
Kevin Nicklin said he's written to Justice and Public Safety Minister Kris Austin, whose riding includes Grand Lake, asking him to choose the municipality as the site for a new provincial jail.
"As far as I'm concerned, the municipality of Grand Lake would love to have it," Nicklin said.
"We're centrally located. We have the availability and the space in our industrial park. We have water and sewerage, and road and fire hydrants are already down in that area."
Austin
has defended his government's decision to build a new jail in
Fredericton, citing crime rates and saying the current correctional
system has capacity issues. (Ed Hunter/CBC)
Nicklin said Austin has so far only written back to acknowledge the letter.
Nicklin's pitch to see a jail built in Minto, about 50 kilometres east of Fredericton, comes days after the Department of Justice and Public Safety issued a brief news release saying it will no longer build a jail in Fredericton.
The department cited concerns raised by some residents over its planned location in the Vanier Industrial Park.
"The government is now looking at a location outside the city to minimize any perceived impact upon residents," the release said.
Austin wasn't made available for an interview Wednesday, with a department spokesperson saying they have nothing further to add.
Austin's provincial riding includes the municipality of Grand Lake, which was recently created through local government reform by merging the communities of Minto and Chipman.
Austin's riding office is located on Main Street in Minto.
No other site yet selected, Higgs says
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Premier Blaine Higgs didn't provide more information about why his government pulled out of the deal with Fredericton.
But he said no alternative site has been selected.
"There was significant opposition to the location that had been cited, and so at this point, we are looking for options in areas that may be more receptive to having it in their community," Higgs said when asked about it during a news conference on the Charlotte County forest fires.
Asked what the chances are that it will go to Grand Lake, Higgs said the jail could still go anywhere.
"I don't have any site in mind. I don't know of other sites that could be possible solutions, but at this point in time [the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure] is looking at other locations."
When the new jail was first announced for Fredericton, the province said it was needed to accommodate a growing provincial jail population.
Nicklin said building the jail in Grand Lake would make sense both for the province and for the municipality.
He said the province already owns land in the industrial park in Minto, and the area is close to a medical clinic.
He said there would be spin-off benefits, including jobs that would need to be filled to staff the jail.
Fredericton wants to 'recoup' costs from province
The jail's construction would also spur economic activity, and once completed, it's expected that employees would spend money at local shops and restaurants, he said.
The New Brunswick government announced it would build a new jail in Fredericton in the fall of 2021, but the exact location remained unknown until last November, when Fredericton city council agreed to sell the province a 25-acre plot of land in the Vanier Industrial Park for the jail.
About
75 people filled the viewing gallery at Fredericton city hall's council
chambers to watch the third and final vote in January on a rezoning
motion that would allow the construction of the jail. (Aidan Cox/CBC)
A rezoning process by council was met with intense opposition in January from residents of the nearby Lincoln Heights neighbourhood, who packed city council chambers to voice concerns the jail would reduce their sense of safety, and lower the value of their homes.
Mayor Kate Rogers had welcomed the jail's expected construction in Fredericton, and council ultimately approved the rezoning for it in a 7-4 vote.
In an email Tuesday, city spokesperson Shasta Stairs said the process "consumed considerable staff and council time and also caused anxiety for some residents in the area."
Stairs said now that the province has decided not to buy the land, the city will work to "recoup any related costs" from the province.
CBC News asked for an interview with Rogers about the province's decision, but Stairs said she was out of town and unavailable to comment.
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