The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

If you have been at Walmart of Kent lately, you will have noticed the land development activity that is going on behind these stores.   That development is designed to open up commercial development space in that Shoal Harbour Drive / Coish Place area.      The developer, in this case, is the Town of Clarenville. The Town has borrowed and spent a good chunk of change in order to make that land usable.  At the Council meeting this past Tuesday, the Town accepted a tender from Cougar Construction for $293,000 to do further work.  The problem is that this tendered amount was 30% more ($93,000) than what was predicted by the Town’s own estimates.  That’s a significant overage and a large amount of money that the Town will have to unexpectedly borrow.  It could also potentially affect the town’s ability to borrow for other things - like much needed road improvements.  Although I have no doubt that over time the newly developed land will be sold and the Town will recoup its