“The consultation process is a joke,” says Katie, a 24-year-old student, lips quivering, eyes on the brink of tears. She announces that she is going to leave Halifax because the city doesn’t care about the desires of its populace. Halifax Regional Municipality makes her feel agentless.
Peter Bigelow, manager of real property planning for HRM and principal mover in the city’s plan for renovating the North Common, appears unmoved after her speech, saying, “Gotcha,” moving the questioning period on. The rest of the meeting in Halifax city hall on that snow-covered January 20 was much the same.
Over $3 million has been proposed for the improvements, which includes money for trees and landscaping, widened pathways, redesign of the fountain, new park lighting and, most importantly, a special events plaza and a permanent power supply. Planned for the corner of Cogswell and North Park (replacing the Number 6 baseball field), the special events plaza and seating, according to Bigelow, would be open for public use and for local performing artists. He points out that there is already a large powwow for the Membertou nation booked, and Queen Elizabeth is thinking of delaying her summer trip a day to take in the sights.
The room was not as happy as could be expected from this news.
While many there believed this to be a consultation session, Bigelow announced that there are already several bookings for the plaza. Peggy Cameron, of the community group Friends of the Halifax Common, says she is curious why, if this is for the local arts community, they have yet to be consulted. She also wonders exactly how these concerts benefit downtown, as suggested by HRM staff.
It has been over three years since the Rolling Stones played on the Common and, to date, there has been no data made public as to how these concerts have benefited downtown. Some experts seem to think the concerts have had the opposite effect.
Bernard Smith, executive director of the Spring Garden Business Association, says that what data they do have does not support this theory. In fact, he says, “Big events seem to put our customer base into hiding.”
Jane Wright, who owns jane’s on the common, says that she lost money during the concerts and had to close down her operation during the duration due to intrusion of sound and a stack of blue toilets muddling up the view from her restaurant.
While some local residents, like Cath Bray, say they see fabulous improvements planned, she is still skeptical when it comes to the big shows (Country Rockfest is scheduled for August 6 and 7). Bray believes that the $720,000 budget allotted for this year will go entirely toward aiding future concerts, suggesting that the $375,000 allocated for the permanent power supply is to allow large-scale concerts to plug in their equipment and have enough juice; $100,000 for neighbourhood entrance plazas will make it easier for trucks to enter the ground and $125,000 to widen pathways is only to allow the trucks inside.
Like many of the other people in the neighbourhood, local musician Lukas Pearse has concerns about the big concerts. He is excited by the prospect of playing at the new special events plaza but wonders if this will be a space for Haligonian artists like himself, or “if it would just be for Bonos.”
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2010.
Oh no! janes on the common had to close during the large concerts! Where will people get overpriced brunch?!
I’ve always hated the misconception that the small amount of people that live on the common are the only people that use it, and are the only ones who should have a say about it. I welcome any funds that would go towards a permanent concert area. If some whiny hipster moves away, so be it.
HRMs plan for the Common is a plan only to enhance the ability to host mega concerts. A concert venue at the corner of North Park and Cogswell streets will only be used by mega concerts. Local bands cannot afford to pay HRM & HPD to shut down the streets so audiences can hear them over traffic, and even if they could, motorists would find perpetual street closures annoying, and local residents would find the bothersome set-up / concert / take-down a patently unfair burden. Users of the Common green space will lose even more access to the surrounding / remaining green space under this plan. Concerts close more than just a corner of the Common. And those widened, paved paths? Those are for trucks, not cyclists. There is plenty of room for cyclists and pedestrians on the existing paths (bike paths in the national capitals green spaces are no wider). Rather than pave over the little green space HRM has left in the urban core, it would better serve to improve the bike lanes on existing streets, and run commercial concerts in a more appropriate, non-residential venue – one where amplified music is welcome and / or needs not compete with traffic noise.
How much do you want to bet that Jane’s would make gobs of money if they stayed open during the concerts, regardless of shitty view of blue toilets and ‘noise’? duh! Idiots.
This will always be a sore point for a lot of people unfortunately. The Friends of the Commons and the Heritage society have the same agenda and that is keep everything the way it is. They will never be swayed in any other direction. Keep the buildings looking old and the grass looking fresh. Personally, I think it’s great that twice a year the Commons is used for something other than baseball, muggings, dog piss and drug use.
As a cyclist I’m looking forward to widened paths, hopefully with marked bike lanes, as pedestrian-cyclist crossings are always a bit touch&go. If all of these improvements contribute to avoiding having the commons fenced off for days at a time, and providing local residents with unavoidable exposure to musicians decades past their prime is truly inevitable, then I’m all for the work, since obviously Halifax doesn’t have any other pressing issues that we should be spending 3 mil on.
As a resident of Halifax and a frequent visitor to the commons for recreational purposes (walking through, playing frisbee, jogging, etc.) I am absolutely dismayed with the approach the city is taking to enhancements to the park. I believe that any improvements that are geared towards providing infrastructure for private for-profit concerts are not really beneficial to the daily uses of the commons by the citizens of Halifax. As the article points out, public consultation is sorely lacking. Since this is one of the main public spaces and parks in the city, intetended for “common use”, consultation should be thorough and thoughtful, which is obviously not the case.
You people are fucking idiots. The only time that 99% of HRM gets to use the common is during huge summer concerts (all 2 of them). These changes are welcomed and hopefully just the first phase of dozens of upgrades. And to Katie…the 24 year old on the brink of tears….get the fuck out of Halifax and never come back.
How the fuck is a bit of concrete going to stop you from playing with your frisbee? FFS!
I bet Katie fucks off back to Southern Ontario or Vancouver when she finishes her schooling. Typical, go to the Critical Mass facebook page (or one to do with that chebucto widening thing last year) and you’ll find that the majority of them aren’t even from here.
Halifax for Haligonians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, the new fountain, lighting and trees are totally just so they can get more trucks through.
The North Common clearly needs improvement. It has cheap infrastructure from the 1960s and does not suit the needs of the city. It’s not well-lit (yay muggings), it doesn’t have proper paths for people to walk on (mostly becomes a muddy mess), and it’s mostly just empty grass. Most people would be happier if it simply didn’t exist and you didn’t have to walk across an extra 0.5 km of nothing to get to Quinpool.
Look at the Central Common, on the other hand – tennis courts, a playground, a skatepark, a swimming pool, a baseball diamond, AND some open grassy space. It’s 1/3 the size and yet in the summer you see way more people there.
I really wish people weren’t so out to lunch, or at least I wish the obnoxious 0.1% who are both loud and uninformed would be ignored even more than they already are.