Nova Scotia NDP Leader Claudia Chender recently visited Upper Hammonds Plains, where construction is underway on what the community describes as the largest Black-led co-operative housing development in Canada.
Chender toured the site with members of the Upper Hammonds Plains Community Land Trust and shared a video from the visit, drawing attention to both the housing development and the larger effort to keep land and housing within one of Nova Scotia’s historic African Nova Scotian communities.
“This is what we mean when we talk about building housing that people can afford,” Chender says in the video. “Not more expensive condos, not more million-dollar houses, community-first housing.”
The video offers a look at the development as it is being built, with Chender touring the site and speaking with people involved in the project.
But the development is also part of something bigger that has been taking shape across African Nova Scotian communities.
Earlier this year, BlackNovaScotia.ca highlighted a $2-million investment from the McConnell Foundation supporting four Black-led community land trusts in Upper Hammonds Plains, Weymouth Falls, Truro and North End Halifax.
Community land trusts hold land for the long-term benefit of a community rather than allowing it to simply move through the private real estate market. In African Nova Scotian communities, that model has increasingly become a way of responding to generations of land loss and displacement while creating housing and other development that can remain under community control.
The Upper Hammonds Plains project is perhaps the most visible example of that work right now.
“For generations, people here have worked to protect their homesteads, their land, their culture, and their connection to the community,” Chender says. “And now they’re building homes that help make sure that future generations can stay.”
Chender also points out something notable about how the development has reached this stage.
“This is a project that is truly by community, for community, and they did it without the support of the provincial government,” she says.
That criticism is Chender’s, directed at the Progressive Conservative government. But the larger point illustrated by the visit goes beyond party politics: a major housing development is being built through an African Nova Scotian community-controlled model at a time when housing affordability and the ability to remain in historic Black communities are increasingly connected issues.
And other African Nova Scotian communities are now looking closely at the model.
On September 12, descendants of Weymouth Falls will travel to Upper Hammonds Plains for an African Nova Scotian Community Land Trust Knowledge Exchange, organized by the Weymouth Falls and Upper Hammonds Plains community land trusts.
Participants will hear from the Upper Hammonds Plains land trust and its community partners before touring the housing development. Organizers describe the gathering as an opportunity to share knowledge and experience between the two historic African Nova Scotian communities.
The exchange is supported by the McConnell Foundation, the same organization whose four-year, $2-million investment is supporting Black-led community land trusts in Upper Hammonds Plains, Weymouth Falls, Truro and North End Halifax.
For the Weymouth Falls Community Land Trust, that work includes efforts to preserve the historic Mount Beulah Baptist Church site and develop it as a community hub. In Upper Hammonds Plains, one of the most tangible results is now rising out of the ground.
Chender ends her video by arguing that Nova Scotia needs more investment in projects like it.
“At a time when housing costs keep rising, the Upper Hammonds Plains Community Land Trust shows us what’s possible: more affordable homes, stronger communities, and a future where people don’t have to leave home to build a life.”
Whatever happens with housing policy at Province House, Upper Hammonds Plains isn’t waiting to demonstrate the model.
The community is already building it.
