Eigg Mountain wind-farm appeal dismissed for lack of standing

Nova Scotia’s Regulatory and Appeals Board has dismissed an appeal against rezoning for the proposed 22-turbine Eigg Mountain wind project because the appellant did not provide enough detail to establish his right to bring the challenge.

In Jonathan MacKenzie, 2026 NSRAB 146, dated October 22, board chair Stephen T. McGrath found that MacKenzie’s evidence did not adequately connect the proposed development to a personal impact distinct from concerns shared by the public. The dismissal rested on standing, not a full hearing into the project’s safety.

The board nevertheless addressed a separate objection to the legal grounds of appeal. It found that a municipal policy dealing with excessive traffic hazards could support a limited challenge concerning trails and unmaintained roads. That argument would have been allowed to proceed had MacKenzie established standing.

Antigonish County council approved the land-use bylaw amendment on June 1, 2026. The application covered 24 portions of land, including two alternate turbine locations, for a proposed 154-megawatt project. MacKenzie appealed on June 11, arguing that council should have required setbacks protecting public recreation areas, trails and unmaintained roads.

Missing details about the access route

MacKenzie said he regularly used a company-owned woodlot for forestry, hunting, trapping and recreation. He described travelling through the proposed wind-farm area by ATV or snowmobile, particularly in winter, and said an alternative route was unsafe in winter conditions. His concern was that ice thrown from turbine blades could affect that access.

The municipality and Eigg Mountain Wind challenged both his standing and whether the appeal raised a ground the board could decide.

Under the Municipal Government Act, MacKenzie had to qualify as an “aggrieved person.” The board explained that this category includes an individual with a bona fide belief that a council decision will adversely affect the value or reasonable enjoyment of property they own or occupy. Common-law principles can also recognize affected interests beyond property ownership or legal rights.

The belief must be sincere and reasonably grounded. But the board rejected the idea that an appellant must prove the development will actually cause harm. Planning appeals concern future effects, and a standing hearing should not become a miniature trial of the project’s merits.

The board accepted that MacKenzie used the woodlot regularly. It also recognized that harm to a route necessary to use and enjoy property he controlled could establish a personal interest distinct from general recreational use.

What was missing was enough information to assess that connection. The affidavit did not clearly identify the route, how close it passed to proposed turbines, why that route was necessary rather than preferred, or why the alternative was unsafe. His right to use the trails or roads through private land was also unclear.

Because the alleged ice-throw risk depended on proximity to a turbine, the absence of route information prevented an objective assessment of his belief. Without that link, the remaining evidence described concerns shared by recreational users generally. MacKenzie therefore failed to establish standing on a balance of probabilities.

A narrower policy argument could have survived

The board’s alternative analysis distinguished between demanding new setbacks and relying on an existing planning policy. Its jurisdiction was to decide whether council’s approval reasonably carried out the intent of the municipal planning strategy, not to reconsider the project on any ground an opponent wished to raise.

Policy 4-43 required setbacks from residential dwellings, watercourses and public roads. The board found no sustainable argument that this policy required additional setbacks from other places. Reading the strategy and bylaws together, it also rejected an interpretation that would extend the relevant public-road and public-highway provisions to private roads or publicly owned but unmaintained roads.

General statements about safe communities and preventing hazards supplied context, but did not create independent obligations for council. Nor had MacKenzie identified a specific bylaw requirement left unmet under another policy requiring compliance with the bylaw.

Policy 6-22(d)(iv) was different. It required consideration of excessive traffic hazards on road, cycling and pedestrian networks within, beside or leading to a proposal. For the preliminary challenge to the appeal grounds, the board assumed that ice-throw could create such a hazard and that the trails and unmaintained roads described might fall within those networks.

Those were assumptions for deciding whether the argument could proceed, not findings that the turbines would create dangerous conditions. The board also noted potential mitigation measures in the record, including automatic shutdown triggered by vibration sensors and systems that heat turbine blades to prevent icing.

On that limited basis, the traffic-policy ground was not absolutely unsustainable. Had standing been established, the appeal would have been confined to whether council failed to follow that policy and consequently failed to reasonably carry out the planning strategy’s intent.

In a separate decision issued the same day, 2026 NSRAB 147, the board dismissed MacKenzie’s earlier appeal against November 2025 wind-turbine setback amendments as moot because council had withdrawn those amendments. That separate outcome did not decide the merits of the June 2026 rezoning challenge.