The Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board allowed an appeal over a 315-square-foot addition to an existing home in a wellhead-protection zone, finding that Annapolis County had read a restriction into its land-use bylaw that was not there. In its September 11, 2026 decision, the board said an order directing the municipality to issue a development permit would follow.
The decision, 2026 NSRAB 122, matter M12815, concerned Douglas and Crystal Vezina’s appeal against the Municipality of the County of Annapolis. Board member Bruce H. Fisher concluded that the development officer’s refusal conflicted with the bylaw’s provisions for lawful nonconforming uses.
A stair addition, not a new residential use
The Vezinas proposed replacing an exterior staircase with an internal one so that the basement could be reached without going outside. Their home had complied with the zoning when they bought it in 2021. A new municipal planning strategy and land-use bylaw adopted in April 2024 placed it in the GW2 wellhead zone, where the listed uses were water-supply infrastructure and public trails.
The Vezinas said the addition would not create another dwelling, add bedrooms or bathrooms, increase occupancy, or change the well or septic system. They argued that they were continuing an existing lawful use, not asking the board to authorize a new residential use.
The municipality took the position that residential expansion could not proceed because the GW2 zone contained no residential setback standards against which to measure it. Its development officer confirmed that this was the reason for refusing the application. The municipality also relied on the bylaw’s general restriction of uses to those permitted in each zone.
Existing use and existing structure were different questions
The appeal turned on compliance with the land-use bylaw, rather than whether the board preferred a different planning policy. Under the Municipal Government Act, the Vezinas had to establish that the refusal conflicted with the bylaw. The board considered the wording in its legislative and planning context.
The Act restricts expansion of a nonconforming use within a structure by default, but section 242 permits municipalities to relax those restrictions through their planning instruments. Annapolis had done so in section 4.6 of its bylaw, allowing specified enlargement, reconstruction, repair and renovation, subject to conditions.
Those conditions included not further reducing nonconforming setbacks, lot area or ground-cover requirements, while meeting other applicable requirements. The municipality argued that an existing setback standard was necessary before the provision could operate. The Vezinas argued that, without such a standard, there was nothing to reduce.
Fisher rejected a description both parties had accepted: that the house was a nonconforming structure. It was a lawful nonconforming use, he found, but the structure did not breach any current dimensional requirement. The GW2 zone imposed no minimum lot area or frontage and no front, side or rear setbacks.
With no applicable setback to reduce, the proposed addition could not further reduce a nonconforming setback. The board found that section 4.6 did not require a setback standard to exist before relief was available. The municipality could not supply an additional condition that the bylaw had not enacted.
General use restrictions could not erase the specific relief
The board also rejected the argument that the requirement to meet other applicable rules meant residential use itself had to be permitted in the zone. That reading would defeat the relief for nonconforming uses. In context, the condition referred to requirements other than those creating the nonconforming status.
Similarly, section 3.5’s general list of permitted uses did not add a restriction on nonconforming uses or setbacks that displaced section 4.6. The board therefore rejected the municipality’s alternative route to prohibiting the addition.
Fisher acknowledged the importance of protecting the water supply and examined the planning strategy’s groundwater policies. But those concerns did not change the enacted bylaw’s terms. He suggested the municipality consider clarifying the requirements if the general nonconforming-use provision did not work satisfactorily in particular zones.
The ruling allowed this appeal because the refusal conflicted with the bylaw. It did not remove the wellhead zone or confer an unrestricted right to build: the decision concerned the proposed addition to an existing lawful residential use and the conditions in the bylaw before the board.
