St. Stephen council has given the green light for a new five-unit development in the town.

Housing NB plans to construction the building on a vacant lot along Main Street near Queen Street.

Xander Gopen is a senior planner with the Southwest New Brunswick Service Commission.

Gopen said the project would help reduce the number of families waiting for public housing.

“There’s about 95 on the waitlist in the St. Stephen area, so five units are very, very needed,” Gopen told council.

Each of the five units will have two bedrooms and be around 750 square feet in size, he said.

Gopen noted that Housing NB also plans to make one of the units accessible.

“It’s an affordable, rent-geared-to-income public housing which they will own and manage,” he said.

The senior planner noted there were some challenges in fitting the buliding on the property, such as a sewer easement that goes through the site.

Following a public hearing Wednesday evening, council voted to rezone the land from R-2 residential mix to R-2B medium density residential to allow for the development.