Lohr says he’ll raise buyout program for flooded Bedford homes with feds

CITY news halifax / By Mark Hodgins

Nova Scotia’s housing minister said Thursday he wants municipal and federal help if there’s to be a buyout for homes severely damaged by the flood of July 2023.

“We’re looking for partnerships here, then we would evaluate that,” Lohr told reporters when asked about the status of a buy back program.

The Halifax Regional Municipality sent a letter to the province in October requesting the buyout of some homes along Union St. in Bedford, an area inundated by the flood last summer which is at risk of further flooding. In January, Lohr said he hadn’t seen any such letter.

“The letter had been received by my staff, I hadn’t seen it,” the minister said after a Thursday cabinet meeting.

Lohr said he plans to raise the issue with the federal government. He told reporters he’d reached out to Public Safety Canada about the issue ahead of a trip to Ottawa for a meeting of emergency management officials on Feb. 21.

When pressed on whether the province would consider buying the homes without help from other levels of government, the minister repeated a need for any program to be a municipal, provincial and federal partnership.