Late Friday afternoon, councillor Jim Smith announced that he was dropping his reelection bid.
Smith currently represents the existing District 9, which stretches from the Burnside business park all the way south to Thistle Street, including the new Bridge Terminal. In the newly re-jigged council districts, however, Smith found himself with a difficult choice. Burnside is now in the new District 6, which basically wraps around central Dartmouth, outside the Circumferential Highway, excepting a small sliver of the one of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in HRM, north Dartmouth, north of Albro Lake Road. Were Smith to run in this district, his house wouldn’t be in the district.
On the other hand, the most populous parts of the existing District 6, including Smith’s house, have been pasted onto the new District 5—Dartmouth Centre. Were Smith to run in this district, he’d be facing long-time councillor and former Dartmouth mayor Gloria McCluskey. That’s what he chose to do.
Lots of people looked onto the Dartmouth Centre race and thought the two sitting councillors, Smith and McCluskey, might split a significant portion of the vote, leaving room for other candidates to slip in between. And sure enough, five other candidates joined the fray: Sam Austin, Ken Bowman, Bryn Jones-Vaillancourt, Kate Watson and Bill Zebedee.
Smith had been actively campaigning, so Friday’s announcement was something of a surprise. In an interview with the Chronicle-Herald, he cited unspecified personal reasons for his decision, and I don’t see any reason to pry. Give the man his peace.
A former cab driver, Smith is a sort of ah-shucks nice guy. I don’t believe he’s capable of ill intent. He certainly wasn’t party to any of the back-door wheeling and dealing that goes on in council chambers, which is refreshing, but neither has he been particularly effective at representing his constituents. I can’t think of a policy initiative he’s brought forward that has gone anywhere. Mostly, he seems to have been along for the ride. Still, when it came time for councillors to show some moral backbone, Smith was one of just three councillors to vote to censure mayor Peter Kelly for the concert scandal. It may have been his finest hour.
So what happens now? Gloria McCluskey is undoubtedly the big winner from Smith’s disengagement from politics, and the other candidates are going to have to double down to distinguish themselves while combatting McCluskey’s name recognition.
There are two primary issues facing the Dartmouth Centre district: transit and the fate of downtown.
On transit, central Dartmouth has one of the highest, if not the highest, ridership rates in HRM. It’s very convenient for residents to go to downtown Halifax, with buses leaving the Bridge Terminal every 10 minutes during the weekday. Besides people walking or taking connecting buses to the terminal, lots of people from farther out drive their car to the neighbourhood of the Bridge Terminal, and then take the bus into Halifax, to avoid parking charges. There’s also the ferry which, even with reduced late-night service, gets plenty of use.
McCluskey, I believe, is vulnerable on transit. She supported the Bridge Terminal and the late-night ferry service, but has otherwise been skeptical of the transit service generally, claiming that lots of buses pass her house with few or no passengers.
As an aside, I wish that the same criticism was aimed at cars. The vast majority of cars are extremely under-populated, with just one person in them, and then sit idle all day, transporting no one. It’s true that you might catch a glimpse of a bus at a particular time and it has few people on it, but you have to consider first of all that the same bus was packed with 100 people during the morning rush hour (I challenge skeptics to simply sit at the Bridge Terminal at 6:45am and watch the buses coming in), and secondly, that over the course of the bus’ route, even at slow times, it is transporting dozens of people who get on and off at different points. A single bus, even one with just one person on it while it passes McCluskey’s house at 11am, is carrying hundreds, perhaps thousands of people during the course of a day.
I don’t know exactly how Dartmouth Centre candidates challenging McCluskey can make a name for themselves on transit. It takes being intimately aware of the details of bus routing and scheduling, and a willingness to take big stands. (Hey, they’re the candidates, I don’t have to do all the work here.)
The other issue sitting out there is the future of downtown Dartmouth. Development downtown has been poorly thought out, and McCluskey needs to own some of that. Perhaps the thinking was that any development was good development, so nothing has been remotely questioned. But any development isn’t good. We’ve gotten a lot of crap development downtown (I live nearby).
And there have been conflicts built into development approvals—bars on Portland Street can’t offer live music, thanks to complaints from the newly built condos, but the Celtic Corner, just around the corner, can.
And sorry to rain on the parade, but I don’t think the new King’s Wharf project will do anything at all for the Portland Street business district. King’s Wharf is across a busy, four-lane Alderney Boulevard, and the residents will have their own own businesses on site, which will no doubt be more high-end than the funky Portland Street businesses. And if they aren’t shopping on-site, the King’s Wharf residents will be driving elsewhere for their commerce needs, just like residents of Portland Estates or whatever.
I was talking with Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission director Tim Rissesco recently, and he essentially agreed with my analysis, but thought that King’s Wharf might bring more people into the area on their way to King’s Wharf, and so these people might suddenly become aware of the wonderfully inexpensive retail opportunities downtown. Seems like a stretch to me. Mostly, I think we just allowed a developer to fill in a gigantic water lot and erase the last industrialized part of the downtown waterfront in return for the hint of a dream that maybe a couple of the new residents will buy a croissant or two at TIBS.
On the other hand, the new developments proposed for what used to be called Pine Street, now called Irishtown Road, and still another at the corner of Victoria and Ochterloney Streets, might very well bring less upscale residents into the downtown area who will be more likely to shop at local businesses.
The problem is that Dartmouth Centre candidates are neither discussing the details of these proposals, nor stepping back and outlining a coherent vision for downtown as a whole. Yes, we want more people downtown, and that means more development, but are three buildings shoe-horned into an absurdly small space the way to go? Maybe. Maybe not. The candidates should be discussing that. (Even if there’s nothing they can do about the Irishtown proposal, there will undoubtedly be many more coming forward.)
My personal concern is that downtown takes off in the wrong direction. There are already a lot of interesting things happening downtown, and I think it has the potential to be an Agricola-like shopping district, with a good solid arts scene. But, well, let me be blunt: I don’t want a god damned Starbucks opening up.
I’d like to see the candidates discussing that: how should we shepherd the development of downtown so that it builds on the best of what’s there now, with lots of locally owned shops doing interesting stuff, without it losing that soul and becoming just another inter-changeable retail hell?
Answer me that, candidates.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2012.
Well Tim, I have put some of what you might be looking for out there on http://www.samaustin.ca You can see my policy video on Downtown Dartmouth here http://youtu.be/ScBJTX0rbdo and my thoughts on commercial tax reform here http://youtu.be/otvUqlJ8UOY
I will have future videos on urban design and on public transit, but I’ll summarize my point of view. We need planning rules (and councillors who will stick to them) that emphasizes building forms that results in active streetfronts. Too many modern buildings end up with one long blank wall that sucks the life out of the street around it. We need more developments that take a thoughtful approach and break up long facades and step back when there’s height. Vic Apartments on Hollis and Founders Corner in Downtown are great local examples. I spoke at the public meeting on the Irishtown project and suggested several design tweaks.
On public transit, Metro Transit needs to become more attractive to riders who have options. A bus pass already saves people money. Where Metro Transit is losing out is that taking the bus often means a 2 or even 3 times longer trip. Bus priority infrastructure (signals and lanes) along with more express routing would go a long way to addressing some of the time issue. The ferry service needs to be supported and expanded. We added the Woodside ferry in the late 80s and haven’t done anything since. So much of our city is situated around the harbour and the ferry is something people actually like to ride. It seems silly that we’re not making more use of the harbour. The cost of ferry expansion could also be significantly offset with new tax revenue from transit-oriented development around any new terminals.
Sam Austin
Candidate Dartmouth Centre
spaustin – how do you tweak an 18 storey building less than 10 feet from a heritage building ?
Well, since you asked, here’s my suggested fixes:
1. Break up the rectangular L shape by building 3 buildings instead of 2. We don’t need a wall around Greenvale school;
2. Reduce the horizontal mass by making the buildings different sizes and interesting shapes, like the stair steps on Admiralty Place;
3. Differentiate the Irishtown and Queen Street buildings from each other; there is no reason they have to use the same design and materials, and variety will add to the streetscape;
4. No flat facades. The streetfront should be active and fit the traditional narrow scale of our Downtown building lots (more like Founders Corner, the Vic);
5. Step back more gradually and less abruptly from a low front on Ochterloney and by Lock4 to the taller section on Irishtown (more like the design proposed for Ochterloney and Victoria).
It’s important to remember that Downtown Dartmouth needs development. Portland Street isn’t going to recapture its glory days as a major retail street without people living nearby. HRM as a whole also needs to have more people living and working in the urban core. Our alternative is more and more suburban sprawl and all its related costs while our Downtown stagnates. The Irishtown site is a good location for development and it’s not a bad spot for some height, but I find the design to be pretty underwhelming.
What I would like to see would be less horizontal mass. The Irishtown building makes a giant L around Greenvale which might as well be a wall. It’s about as hostile as you can get in terms of its relation to that building. The wall effect also blocks potential movement through the site, which could be a real shame given the great asset that the Shubienacadie Canal Greenway could be one day. This building could be a case where tall and slender is better than shorter and broad. Some height behind Greenvale is fine, but surrounding the school isn’t. Some cooperation from HRM/Halifax Water regarding their storm pipe easement through the site might really help spread the mass out. If I recall the information presented at the public meeting correctly, the developer is blocked from building on or even overhanging a significant piece of the property because of the easement. That’s a real shame.
As for the Queen and Irishtown sides, there is no reason the two buildings have to use the same materials and be built in the same style. They’re separated by a street and are located in a very diverse urban area. They should look like different buildings, not twins.
The street front at Queen and Irishtown is also about as bland and boring as you can get. It’s just one long expanse that is out of scale with the rhythm of its surroundings. Many modern buildings get this wrong, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The Vic and Founders Corner are great local examples of modern buildings fitting into diverse Downtown settings. At street level, they feel like several separate buildings, even though they’re part of a single whole, because the facade has been broken up with varying setbacks and different materials. That kind of approach could work well here.
If elected, I will be looking for quality design in proposals that come before me. Victoria/Ochterloney has it, the plan for Dartmouth Cove seems good, this building for Irishtown though, not so much.
spaustin – good answer and thumbs up. You took the time to think about the issue. The developer will ignore you.
Thanks for posting Sam Austin…
This is the kind of vision that Dartmouth Centre needs…
On Transit:
First, I believe that we need to elect people that can see to true value of Public transit. The benefit public transit is to transit users and non-users a like. Public transit reduces congestion in local traffic, and creates a healthier, cleaner city for everyone to live in. Public transit reduces pollution. We need to address the duplicity of service and the inefficiency. To fix metro transit, I believe that we need to reverse the ferry cuts. Increase the corridor model that was introduced on August 27,2012 in the Portland Street Area: shorter routes and higher frequencies. Also, build our public transit model on including the harbour ferries, the buses and active transportation routes. All three parts should be working as a seamless system to help move residents across our city.
On renewing Downtown Dartmouth:
We need to encourage development, however it needs to be smart development. New Developments should be complimentary to the neighbourhood they will be built in. Yes, I support re-focusing growth into the Downtown Dartmouth, but there are many ways to increase density. Tall buildings are one way, but taller developments I feel need to compliment an area. They are ways with design that one can make it visually appealing and something beautiful. Also, it is a question of what does density for Dartmouth mean. I feel we need to re-visit this question. As we grow, it is important that development not cater to just one group and that we maintain a variety of demographics in the downtown. As with other candidates, I agree that mixed used development such as Founder’s Corner is a good example of smart development.
On the commercial front, as a local government we need to look at the approval process for new businesses going into Downtown Dartmouth. The property taxes for downtown need to re-visited. A review of how the property assessments are calculated, and to ensure true Market Value is applied. Offering a tax break to downtown is another option I want to explore. Finally, to help downtown we need to ensure it is inviting and accessible for all. I have heard from residents how they do not go to Dartmouth Crossing due to transportation issues, and also accessibility concerns related to mobility (ie using a wheelchair, walker) If we can address that and make downtown more accessible for all consumers, that will help to support a renewed downtown as well.
My campaign is built on Social, Economic and Environmental Sustainability
You can learn more at http://www.bryndartcentre.ca
Bryn Jones-Vaillancourt
Candidate Dartmouth Centre – District 5