People in the Tantallon-St. Margaret’s Bay community say they’ve been ignored when it comes to their visions for future development of the area.
At issue is city staff’s recommended approval of a development at Highway 333 and St. Margaret’s Bay Road. It’s an addition of three commercial buildings (Subway restaurant, Shoppers Drug Mart, TD Bank) and two drive-thrus to an existing Irving station.
The community has been involved in a four-year “visioning” planning exercise led by the St. Margaret’s Bay Chamber of Commerce, Tourism Association, and Stewardship Association, which resulted in drafted bylaws requiring new developments to be built around pedestrian connectivity—creating a village atmosphere with human interaction, without drive-thrus, rather than big-box stores and strip malls.
“I go to the hardware store and then the drug store; they’re 50 metres apart. I drive. That’s how it’s designed,” says Robert Ziegler, Chair of the Stewardship Association.
Halifax council was to review the proposed bylaws in October 2011. But that delay was delayed by the bureaucratic minutiae at city hall: a maternity leave, a retirement, a transfer, and the splitting of the planning department into bylaws and development applications. Unless there are more delays, council will likely see the community’s bylaw proposals this February or March.
But the proposed strip mall must be considered on the existing policies, which favour old thinking about driving-centred development.
The developers, Cobalt Properties and Genivar, did make concessions, including parking areas broken up by landscaping, walking trails, paved walkways, crosswalks, some rear-building parking and bike racks.
At a public hearing on Monday, the Central Community Council voted to defer a decision so newly elected councillors Matt Whitman and Steve Craig could familiarize themselves with the issue. The matter should come back before the council next month.
This article appears in Jan 10-16, 2013.
No surprises here.
I doubt the community will have much grounds to fight on. Council must make decisions in line with the Municipal Plan, and if they do otherwise the developer will appeal and they’ll lose at the UARB. Once the Municipal Plan is changed that’s a different story, but the Municipal Government Act has mandated timelines for considering an application… so I doubt the changes will be made before Council is forced to make a decision on this one. This is why it’s so important to get involved when your Municipal Plan is being written/updated; it’s crucial to get it right the first time.
This is pretty rich: these folks live far enough outside town – many making that choice as adults and recently – that they *have to be* “car-oriented” and “driving-centred”. The kind of thinking embodied here is about as asinine as anyone who thinks the Village Shops area of Dartmouth Crossing is “pedestrian-oriented”.
These people are still generally part of the problem. The large percentage of them must commute to the urban core to work – this is a really safe assumption – and no doubt they contribute through most of their shopping patterns to the big box excrescences that ring the urban core. What they’re saying is, for their occasional local shopping – where they still *drive to* this local cluster of stores – they want it to look pretty.
Not much sympathy from me.
Probably the most depressing part of cycling the Peggy’s Cove Loop (next to that gawdawful “Peggy of the Sea” tourist barf). Got to watch it spread like leprosy over the past few years.
While I agree with arguments on both sides of the coin, the reality is if the city wants development, they get it. It will take a huge ground swell of residents to stop something like this. MPSs are a bunch of crap, as long as developers are continually allowed to apply for changes. The city doesn’t need public consultation to deny any application to change the MPS. They have the power to simply deny any application outside of the plan. They allow the constant stream of applications because HRM only sees the $$$$ signs. They expect people to not show up to these public meetings…the less opposition the better.
Please write the HRM mayor and councillors urging them to reject the development and quickly enact the overdue citizen-led new bylaws. More complete info on this travesty of public process at: http://www.heartofthebay.ca/Issues/Propose… All but one person at the public hearing opposed the development as it is, and that person was a business owner who wants the largest and worst of the new buildings. And still the issue was only deferred, not rejected. Even our MLA spoke against the project. I have been engaged with this issue now since 2007 and the situation is actually even worse than it seems from this article.
Think of how much gas you’ll save by not having to drive into town for that latte.
It’s just a symptom of sprawl and our city leaders have been catering to it for decades. Cookie cutter homes lining the streets of cookie cutter communities with cookie cutter big box – chain – drive-thru – businesses. But I guess growth is growth and who cares about anything else.
What do they want drive throughs for? That is a step backwards, not forwards. Drive through is really bad environmentally, not healthy, and extremely lazy. I hope this area can develop more, but drive through is the last thing anyone needs.
I hope the Tantallon area grows, but I encourage people there to forget about drive throughs. They are a step backwards, not forwards, as they are bad environmentally, unhealthy, and extremely lazy. Tantallon is a very nice area. Work towards keeping it that way by promoting healthy living. Canadians could have met Kyoto Accord goals, simply be doing away with drive through.
Drive thrus make it easier for people to grab a coffee on their way to the highway. You know, because they have to drive to halifax for their job.