At their meeting tonight, town council will decide whether or not to consider municipal plan and bylaw changes that would allow for an abattoir, or slaughterhouse, on Crescent Street between Fleet Street and Sloan Drive.

Planner Lori Bickford introduced the concept to councillors last week in an online discussion meeting.

The abattoir would occupy half of a building on the corner lot of Crescent and Fleet, and would include a processing facility.

The proposal comes from farmer Chris Pierce, who says the plan is to have a small butcher shop and abattoir.

“There’s a lot of farms around Sackville that this spring during COVID, we had a hard time getting animals processed. So that’s I guess what really made me want to do this,” Pierce says.

There was more demand for locally raised meat this year says Pierce. In the spring, there was a six-week wait to get cattle butchered at local area facilities, he says.

Pierce says he foresees having a small storefront for the butcher shop, so people can go buy locally raised meat products.

“We’re still in the early stages here,” he says. “I have to get the town on board.”

“I have a plan in my head, but like I said, we have to have a site that we can do this at,” says Pierce.

Pierce is also planning on being able to process animals for local farmers. He says he has a number in mind, but is also looking at various options and would rather not give specifics yet.

The building’s owner, Richard Baughan, says he expects the operation to be a small one, at least in the beginning. Baughan expects one or two animals per day to be killed and butchered in the facility. He says the facility is about 3,000 square feet.

But Pierce says his eventual goal is to be as big an operation at Boudreau Meat Market in Memramcook.

Jay Boudreau told Warktimes that the abattoir he manages processes an average of about 50 cattle a week.

Tonight, council will decide whether to proceed with a public planning process that would consider the creation of an intensive resource zone that could allow for the abattoir.

The new zone would only be created with a development agreement specific to each potential project, says planner Lori Bickford.

At last week’s discussion meeting, councillors asked a few questions about smell and other issues.

Bickford said in such an application, all the issues and concerns are identified and then it is up to the applicant to show how they have solved those issues as part of the planning approval process.

Council meets online tonight at 7p.m.

For the link, go to the town’s website at Sackville.com.