Keswick Ridge, Mactaquac and Burtts Corner are all in the same municipality, pay exactly the same tax rate, and are separated by $116,800 on the benchmark price. That gap is the most interesting thing about this stretch of the river, and it is the reason these three sit on one page rather than three.
Two benchmarks, one municipality
The board reports this area as two sub-areas. August 2026:
| Sub-area | Benchmark | 12 mo | 3 yr | 5 yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keswick / Mactaquac / Bear Island | $416,400 | +5.4% | +20.3% | +44.8% |
| Burtts Corner / Kingsley | $299,600 | +6.7% | +31.6% | +64.9% |
| Fredericton and Region | $364,200 | +5.8% | +25.8% | +48.8% |
Burtts Corner has the strongest five-year gain on the north side of the region — +64.9%, against +50.2% for Fredericton North as a whole. Keswick, the more expensive of the two, has grown more slowly.
Say the obvious thing about that percentage before anyone gets excited by it: 64.9% of a small number is still a small number. A house that was $182,000 five years ago is around $300,000 now. That is a substantial gain for whoever owned it, and it is still the cheapest way into a detached house within half an hour of Fredericton.
Who is actually buying out here
Two kinds of buyer, from my own deals.
People coming back to where they grew up. That is a real and steady part of this market, and it explains something the price history on its own does not. Someone who grew up on the Keswick Ridge and is buying back into it is not weighing the drive against Nashwaaksis. They already know exactly what the drive is, in February as well as in July.
People who want to live outside the city. Not priced out of it — choosing against it. Land, quiet, room, and a property tax bill roughly a quarter lower than the same assessment inside Fredericton.
That distinction matters if you are the one selling. Neither of those buyers is reached by putting a sign on the lawn and waiting for city traffic to find it. Both are reached deliberately, and that is a marketing decision rather than a pricing one.
Central York Rural Community — and the one exception
All three communities are in Central York Rural Community, created on 1 January 2023 out of a group of former local service districts.
The useful thing about Central York, and it is genuinely unusual, is that every one of its rural sub-units is charged the same local rate. There is no guessing which side of an old line a property sits on. For 2026:
| Component | Rate per $100 |
|---|---|
| Central York local rate | $0.4057 |
| Services still administered by the Minister | $0.1334 |
| Provincial levy (former LSD areas) | $0.4115 |
| Total | $0.9506 |
For comparison, the City of Fredericton’s inside rate is $1.3086. On a $416,400 assessment the Central York bill is roughly $1,489 a year lower than the same assessment inside the city. That difference is a real part of what you are buying, and it is worth putting into the mortgage conversation rather than discovering afterwards.
The exception is Bear Island. The board groups Bear Island with Keswick and Mactaquac for price reporting, but it is not in Central York — it falls in Nackawic-Millville Rural Community, which sets its own rates. If you are looking at Bear Island specifically, the benchmark on this page applies but the tax arithmetic does not. Check the assessment notice.
Mactaquac: the dam question, settled
People still ask whether the headpond is going away. It is not.
The concrete at the Mactaquac Generating Station has been affected since the 1980s by alkali-aggregate reaction — the aggregate reacts with the cement paste, the concrete swells and cracks, and NB Power manages it with slot-cutting and grouting. In December 2016 the utility chose to rehabilitate the station and run it to roughly 2068, its intended hundred-year life. The alternatives — a new station across the river, keeping the dam without generation, or removing it entirely — were all more expensive, and removal would have taken the lake with it.
What has changed since is the scale. NB Power now puts the Life Achievement Project at $7.6–9 billion including interest and inflation, against $2.9–3.6 billion in 2016, and says the station would likely have to cease operations by 2030 without the work. On 30 August 2026 it announced a twelve-month development-phase agreement with the Mactaquac Improvement Partnership, with construction expected to begin in mid-2027 and the project running into the late 2030s. The release is explicit that the agreement does not authorise construction to start.
What that means if you are buying on the headpond: the lake stays, and there will be a very large construction project at the dam for roughly a decade. NB Power has not published anything about drawdowns or shoreline effects during the work, so nobody can honestly tell you there will be none. If you are buying waterfront, that is a question to put to NB Power in writing rather than to an agent.
Headpond water levels, and the list you should be on
The normal operating range is 128 to 133 feet. NB Power notifies dock and boat owners when the level is heading below 130 feet, and how much that shows at your shoreline depends entirely on the riverbed in front of you. Levels move daily with system load and river flow and can drop below 128 during hot dry spells or maintenance.
Two practical things for any waterfront owner here: real-time levels are published by NB Power, and you can ask their corporate communications to add you to the email advisory list for low-level notice. Ask the seller what they have actually seen at the end of a dry August.
Mactaquac Provincial Park
At 1256 Route 105, described by NB Parks as twenty minutes west of Fredericton: over 15 kilometres of hiking and cycling trail, a campground with tent, RV and roofed sites, a beach, two marinas and an eighteen-hole golf course. Camping season runs roughly mid-May to mid-October; the grounds are open year-round.
Getting there
From Officers’ Square: Mactaquac Provincial Park is about 22 kilometres by Woodstock Road, Route 102 and across the dam; Keswick Ridge about 25 kilometres; Burtts Corner about 28 kilometres by Route 105 and Route 104. Twenty-five to thirty minutes for the further two in normal conditions. Route 105 and Route 104 are provincial routes, which is the answer to the winter maintenance question people usually ask second.
Wells, septic and fire
Outside serviced municipal areas these are private drilled wells and on-site septic systems, permitted and inspected by the province. About 40% of New Brunswick households are on private wells. Confirm servicing for the specific property rather than assuming from the community.
Keswick Valley Fire Department is based at 32A Route 617 in Burtts Corner and names Keswick Ridge, Douglas and Burtts Corner among the communities it responds in, with mutual aid from Keswick Ridge Fire Department. I have not been able to confirm hydrant coverage anywhere in these communities from a published source, and in practice hydrants need a piped system. That matters because insurers price hydrant-protected and tanker-shuttle properties differently. Get the insurance quote before your condition date, not after.
What I check on a walkthrough out here
- Well chemistry in full, not just a bacteria test. Arsenic, manganese and uranium all occur in the bedrock here and none of them is visible or has a taste.
- Well yield, especially on a lot with a large lawn or a hot tub. Ask what it does in late August.
- Septic age, last pump-out, and whether the field has ever been replaced.
- The oil tank. Age, not condition, is what decides whether you can get insurance.
- Wood heat and a WETT inspection. Far more common out here, and your insurer will want it.
- Radon. Cheap to test, invisible otherwise.
- Aluminum branch wiring on anything from roughly 1965 to 1978.
- Basement water, and on a sloped rural lot, where the ground sends it in a spring melt.
- The driveway. Length, grade and who ploughs it. It sounds trivial in July.
Where to go from here
- Douglas at $470,000 — closer in, and split across four governing bodies.
- Hanwell at $551,400 — the other side of the river, also wells and septic, and the most expensive area in the region.
- The neighbourhood finder — all 33 sub-areas sorted by budget.
- Rural and acreage properties — what changes when you leave municipal services behind.
Looking up the river and trying to work out what the real monthly cost is once tax and servicing are in? Get in touch — I answer my own phone.
