This story will be updated.
The Belfast City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday night to vacate a 2021 eminent domain action that was meant to help Nordic Aquafarms develop a land-based salmon farm, raising questions about how viable the hotly contested, years-long project will be going forward.
After more than an hour of public comment from Nordic Aquafarms and its opponents, the councilors agreed to vacate the eminent domain decision.
When that decision was first reached in 2021, it was meant to secure access to a contested section of mudflat where the company hoped to bury pipes in the intertidal zone near the mouth of the Little River.
But some key things have changed since then, including one court decision that found nearby landowners who opposed the project had rights to the intertidal land, and another that remanded the eminent domain decision back to Belfast for reconsideration or withdrawal.
Before the vote, multiple councilors suggested that the dispute over the project had dragged on for too long and that it was time for the city to drop its involvement. They also noted that the city had supported the project because of the great tax revenue it was expected to bring, but that the financial situation has improved since then and that the council has been able to lower the tax rate.
“I feel the city needs to extract itself from this situation as quickly as possible, for various reasons,” Mayor Eric Sanders said.
The council chamber burst into applause after the decision, including from many opponents of the project who had urged councilors to vacate the eminent domain action.
Nordic Aquafarms did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the viability of its project going forward.
Now that councilors have approved vacating the eminent domain decision, the city’s attorney is drafting a formal proposal to do so that will be voted on at the group’s next meeting.
