The councils for the town of Windsor and the Municipality of the District of West Hants have agreed to amalgamate the two municipalities.

At a special meeting of the joint council, members passed a motion to ask the provincial minister of municipal affairs to allow them to start negotiating the consolidation, and that the process be finished by Dec. 31, 2020.

Each council then separately approved the motion after the joint council meeting.

"I'm really excited about it," said Anna Allen, the mayor of the Town of Windsor. "It's been a long time in coming."

The warden of the Municipality of the District of West Hants was equally effusive, calling it "a historic day."

"I'm very excited," said Abraham Zebian. "It's a major step forward to eliminate the political barriers that have held our community back for so long."

Years of tension

The two municipalities have shared decades of tension, fighting over who pays for fire protection, the water utility, the library and the community centre.

Allen said she hopes the changes will allow the whole region to start enjoying the benefits of consolidation, including joint tourism and economic development efforts.

"Working together is much better," she said. "You do have more to showcase. You do have one person selling it rather than two different ones. You're not competing for those tidbits."

Zebian agreed that a unified municipality will benefit everyone.

"The benefits are endless. Every obstacle that there is is usually political. If everything does go through … you'll see a group of people who are elected to represent the whole area. It's eliminating borders, it's eliminating two separate visions and it's bringing it all together as one."

Abraham Zebian is the warden of the Municipality of the District of West Hants. (Robert Short/CBC)

Neither leader could say what the financial implications might be for residents.

"I don't see our taxes going in half, unfortunately," said Allen. "That's not the way it works."

The municipalities have asked for a meeting with Municipal Affairs Minister Chuck Porter, who is also the MLA for Hants West, to request special legislation that will allow the process to unfold outside the control of the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board.

"We want a system where we have control of our destiny, not a third party making it for us and doing it and forcing studies upon studies, which will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars," Allen said.

Neither would speculate on what a new entity might be named, but both leaders said it's possible that citizens will be asked to weigh in on that question.