For residents of Ocean Breeze Village in Dartmouth, N.S., the slow destruction of the community is a tragedy.
Céline Porcheron, who’s lived in Ocean Breeze Village since 2017 and is the president of the Ocean Breeze Residents Association, finds it heart-wrenching to watch the community where her friends once lived get evicted and torn down.
“It’s just absolutely devastating,” Porcheron said. “It’s stressful; I spend my time at work thinking about it. My breaks are filled with research and talking to people and trying to make some noise.
“This community wants to make noise — they want to be heard.”
On April 2, the developer distributed a pamphlet to everyone living in the community, informing 143 households that they would be evicted by March 31, 2026, as part of phase two of the development of the lands.
There isn’t a timeline set yet for phase three or four of the development.
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Basin Heights Community LP bought the community in 2023 and began the first phase of the new development plans for the area in the summer of 2024. This phase involved evicting many tenants who relocated within the community and demolishing the empty buildings.
In a community made up largely of low-income families and those on pensions and disability benefits, being forced to find a place to live in under a year doesn’t seem possible.
Jessica Sudsbury, a longtime resident of Ocean Breeze, found out on Wednesday that she and her daughter were included in the March 2026 evictions. She says it’s not enough time, especially given the number of households now in the same position she’s in.
“To be given such short notice, even one year might sound like a long time but we know how fast time goes by. So yeah, I was pretty shocked and I think the reality really set in,” Sudsbury said.
She adds that she struggles not to take her daughter away from friends and school, but given the difficulties with finding housing, she says she may not have much choice.
“It might be a matter of whatever we can get, we take. Whether that’s further away, taking her away from her friends, downsizing whether that be because that is, you know, available or what we can afford. So, yeah, there’s a lot up in the air,” she continued.
Basin Heights Community LP is offering residents financial assistance in the form of a payment equivalent to three months’ rent and one-time payments of $3,500 to relocate outside of Ocean Breeze Village if they confirm by June 30. But for Céline Porcheron, it’s not enough, especially given the housing market and the timeline.
“Now, what we don’t like about this is that it really twists somebody’s arm in the housing market that we have. It takes a lot of research to be able to find something these days and to uproot kids in March before the end of the school year is heartless,” Porcheron says.
Basin Heights Community LP did not respond to Global News’ request for an interview.
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