Last week, Halifax City Council again/still/always decided to re-re-re-write its planning bylaws on the fly for the greater good and increased profit of a private developer whose books it didn’t bother examining, let alone asking to glimpse once, maybe upside down on the desk, even just in passing. Jump? How high, sir, how high?… Good...
How would you change the rules of the road?
The province has put out an open call for input on a new Traffic Safety Act to replace the much-amended and much-maligned Motor Vehicle Act (MVA). The call-out is remarkably open ended, simply asking people to read over the current MVA and “tell us what changes we should consider to the rules of the road,”...
Raw sewage was dumped into the harbour Saturday morning, and Halifax Water tried to cover it up
An apparent act of sabotage on the MacKay Bridge resulted in a loss of communications between sewage pumping stations and the Dartmouth sewage plant; that in turn led to raw sewage being dumped into Halifax Harbour. When we asked a Halifax Water spokesperson about it, he denied there was a discharge of raw sewage and gave us a counter-narrative that was patently not true. Today, the Department of Environment confirms that in fact raw sewage was discharged into the harbour.
At around 3:30am on Saturday, a man was seen walking on the catwalk under the MacKay Bridge, confirms Sergeant Stephanie Carlisle of the Halifax Regional Police Department. Security around the bridge has increased in recent years, especially since Holly Bartlett was found mortally wounded under the bridge on the Halifax side of the harbour. Barbed wire […]
What’s wrong with the Barrington Street bridge ramp, and can we fix it?
Last week I wrote about the new street network being proposed for the land currently occupied by the Cogswell interchange, and asked why the city was proposing not to include a transit priority corridor along the full stretch of Barrington Street that’s being re-designed. The current plan does include some transit priority lanes on Barrington […]
Talking in circles: Lots of questions, few answers at open house on St. Margaret’s Bay development proposal
Michelle Dolbec has one of those storybook too-good-to-be true stories about why she moved to Nova Scotia. She was living in Ottawa, then got married and took a sailing trip with her husband. “We sailed into St. Margaret’s Bay on our honeymoon, and decided we wanted to stay here,” she told a group of people...
The Cogswell redesign’s transit failure
The newly passed Integrated Mobility Plan calls for a transit priority corridor on Barrington Street, but the Cogswell redesign plan doesn't include it. Why not? Blame planners who design for the status quo.
The Cogswell Lands plans have toured around the city for the past two weeks in an effort to get some public input on the greenspaces that will be part of the plan. (Not where the greenspaces are, mind you, but what might go in them. You can check out the plans and weigh in online...
United Way poverty report: “the system needs to change”
The irony, the report points out, is that most of those who live in poverty are actually employed, but 28 per cent earn well below a living wage. Their poverty — are you listening, Mr. Premier? — costs the province $1.5–2.2-billion a year.
Halifax’s United Way has done it again. Traditionally, the do-good organization has been best known for turning your $5.4 million in yearly giving into a gamut of good grants to an alphabet soup of good-doing local organizations — from the Adsum Association for Women & Children to the Youth Voices of Nova Scotia Society —...
Examineradio 154: Convention centre problems? Halifax, you were warned!
Urban studies prof Heywood Sanders, an expert on convention centres, weighs in on ours. Sanders came to Halifax in November 2010 to warn city councillors against approving the deal for the convention centre: In response to a question of clarification by Councillor Rankin, Dr. Sanders explained that if the base assumption of number of events […]
The largest residential development ever proposed for Saint Margaret’s Bay leaves community struggling to define itself
Bill Brooks stands on the deck of the new St. Margaret’s Bay Community Enterprise Centre and points past two parking lots, a vet clinic and a small strip mall across the road — to the spot where Joe Arab proposes building a 112-unit development. “It’s going to go over there,” he says. “Behind there. I...
Densely calculated density
In return for "public benefits" — affordable housing units, public art, and the like — the city trades "density bonuses" that allow developers to build higher and bigger than planning rules would otherwise allow. But a study shows that on just six big developments downtown, the city lost a potential $8 million in public benefits because it low-balled calculations.
If public meetings to discuss the municipality’s Centre Plan were episodes of Sesame Street, they would be “brought to you by the number 15.” The Centre Plan would chart development for the next 15 years. But that same number keeps getting raised in pointed questions from citizens who want to know why there’s a 15-year...
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