Competing visions of downtown came clashing up against each other last month when United Gulf Developments dropped a development application at city offices for a parcel of land at the corner of Sackville and Hollis Streets.
United Gulf, which couldn’t get financing for its two 27-storey “Twisted Sisters” project on the same site, has decided that a much larger project with two 48-storey towers is somehow viable. The development industry has its own financial logic, I guess.
“The design celebrates Halifax’s status as the centre of Atlantic Canada, while beckoning the world with our progressive ideals for the future,” boasts United Gulf’s website, and this younger, better-looking Sisters project, promising the tallest erections in the city, immediately appealed to the masturbatory fantasies of the type of people who have visions of Halifax as Skyscraper City, with a skyline interchangeable with that of New York or Calgary or Sao Paulo.
But whatever you think of Younger, Better-Looking Sisters, there’s no doubt that the proposal conflicts with another vision of the city, the one laid out in HRM By Design.
Let me back up a bit. The entire point of HRM By Design was to take the politics out of the development process. Some parameters in terms of height, design and setbacks were written into the planning code, and in return, any project that fell within those parameters would be fast-tracked for approval. There wouldn’t be a lengthy public hearing process, and council’s ultimate approval was to be pro forma, not really up for debate. Many thousands of people came out to the visioning meetings to determine the parameters, and there was broad, if not total, agreement on the final terms. Everyone patted themselves on the back, and the final plan won a bunch of awards. Yay, us!
In theory, HRM By Design was a good idea. But practice is something else. First, the finalized HRM By Design documents grandfathered in four projects —the original Twisted Sisters project, the Roy Building, the Discovery Centre and City Centre Atlantic—and an absurd last-minute loophole allowed the convention centre. The Roy and Discovery projects, which have since been approved, tear the essence out of the heart of the HRM By Design compromise —the Barrington Street Historic District.
And the convention centre demonstrates the fatal flaw of HRM By Design: Despite promises to the contrary, politics aren’t removed from the planning process. Any developer with enough connections can get any project approved, no matter how dog-awful the design.
There has always been a way around HRM By Design, which is for developers to simply take a project directly to council and through the public hearing process, just like before HRM By Design existed. This is what United Gulf is now doing with Younger, Better-Looking Sisters, and if council approves it, there’s no reason not to expect every other future developer to go this route.
As for projects fitting under HRM By Design, we’ve had three—the Sam the Record Man rebuild now under construction, a TD Bank retrofit and the new Chickenburger on Queen Street.
So, we have three relatively minor projects that fit under HRM By Design, but five that don’t. And four of the five majorly conflict with HRM By Design —orders of magnitude conflicting: humongous buildings that completely obliterate the vision of HRM By Design. Besides that, if most projects moving forward don’t even attempt to meet the terms of HRM By Design, what was the point of it?
In retrospect, we now see that HRM By Design was a sham. No one had any intention of abiding by it. City staff wrote huge loopholes into the plan, developers don’t give two shits about it and prepare applications contrary to HRM By Design, and city council approves all the contrary applications and grandfather clauses that appear before it. HRM By Design is dead. The awards will look good on someone’s wall, but will have no reflection on the streets of Halifax.
Oh, and those thousands of people who spent many hours contributing to the visioning processes, who wrote earnest emails, who believed that Halifax could set a new direction for development? Suckers.
This article appears in Aug 4-10, 2011.
Those thousands of people who spent many hours contributing to the visioning processes, who wrote earnest emails, who believed that Halifax could set a new direction for development? Didn’t waste their time.
They are indeed more than suckers though if they think their document was anything more than a guidebook. It’s not the fucking gospel. Get over it.
PS Can’t wait to see some 48 story buildings in Halifax, and I’m sure you’ll be happy enough too when the tax dollars created by these projects pay for all the pet projects in this city YOU’D like to see…
Tim, again very good journalistic work, but this information is seriously shocking.
Are you saying that HRM By Design is just a recommendation for new developments and not an obligatory requirement?! Just smoking mirrors?! Please explain the technical details how developers can still take a new project directly to council and through the public hearing process, just like before HRM By Design existed.
‘dartmouthy’ has penile fantasies on a consistent basis and just can’t get enough developers with no money parading through the media with drawings of giant erections.
As stock markets crash, investors flee to gold and chunks of Europe face bankruptcy I think we can reasonably conclude United Gulf has no clothes…..
rapallo — there’s no requirement that developers go through the HRM By Design process.
This province, and indeed the whole Maritime region, are full of shit hole, hole in the wall, one horse towns, where development will NEVER happen.
There are people in this city who are younger than you, have kids, and would like to see this city become financially self sufficient. They would like this city to have a future Joe Blow.
Use all the penile related rhetoric you’d like – insults are the only option left for the ignorant and uneducated.
And joe blow – if you want to see a giant erection, all you had to do was ask me nicely 😉
Actually Tim – HRM by design is that downtown Land Use bylaw and the design manual is part of that. So you are wrong – all applications must go through that process. What you conveniently forget to mention in your article is that under the HRM act (and before that the Municipal Government Act) – anyone can make an application to amend the Land use bylaw or policies that council has approved. Council does not have to approve it – but anyone could. You could right now, if you paid the $ and had the correct information.
HbD was flawed in that it’s height requirements don’t even recognize the existing development. There was not total agreement, it was an attempt to quiet all the heritage people and get development going but in the end it actually claws back development rights on parcels. Many of the condo towers around the YMCA site, with the post bonus height map, actually would loose height and they were built before HbD took effect – how is that fair?
Also your comment on grandfathering is flawed. The legislation was going through the approval process, it had not been given final reading and signed into law. Council was given a recommendation on those applications and the conference centre. Whether you or I like it or not, they chose to grandfather 4 applications and the conference centre. That’s the power council has. Once they did that an approved the whole thing – it didn’t tear at the fabric of HbD, it became part of HbD.
Residents were brainwashed by anti-development fringe groups to support HRM_by_Design with the promise that it would create a vibrant, booming downtown. I am sure that Tim was there front and centre urging its creation. But of course, as anyone with any common sense would realize, severe height restrictions plus more costly design requirements won’t spur development. Every time the HRM_by_Design height limits are exceeded, I want to stand up and cheer. Enough of these backward ideas – at least make the height limits sensible. I doubt the 48 storey towers will proceed, and I personally hope that they won’t, but I am all for 27 storey towers at that site.
As far as the grandfathered developments go – they were permitted by the previous bylaws, including the new convention centre proposal. There is no conspiracy here either Tim (you look for a conspiracy everywhere!). It is just called fairness – for example, how would you like the situation if you bought a lot and the city said that you could build a 1500 square foot home but then 1 year later decided that instead they will only allow a 800 square foot home?
Isn’t it time for people such as Tim to stop categorizing developers as evil corporations and start seeing them as people creating jobs and money for HRM residents? Often they risk everything, and lose everything. We need more risk-taking developers and fewer sensationalist “journalists”.
You’ll be waiting a long time for your comrades at the coast to get behind development in this city. I heard Stalin thought seven stories should be enough for any building.
er, I did NOT urge adoption of HRM By Design. I was skeptical from the get-go that politics could be removed from the development process.
The other thing you seem to forget about all this Tim is that development rules are fluid. They change and have a life – designs and standards change and so to must the rules.
The rules as they are now, may not be the same in 10 years because how we build things could change tomorrow. So the rules should change to adapt to that.
It’s not ‘a loophole’ to apply to amend the plan. That’s the way the system works – anyone can ask. I agree with Fenwick; you see conspiracy everywhere. But I wouldn’t hold my breath to see the coast get behind anything – then they’d be out of business. Whatever would they write about?
yellow journalism definition:
#1
1.scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news
2.lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings
3.use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudo-science, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts
4.emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips
5.dramatic sympathy with the “underdog” against the system.
#2
Yellow journalism, in short, is biased opinion masquerading as objective fact. Moreover, the practice of yellow journalism involved sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images for the sole purpose of boosting newspaper sales and exciting public opinion
What we have in downtown Halifax is a small group of people who each harbour the dream of building a large project, so large that it knocks the others out of the market for at least 10 years.
Not one of them has the money to do so, not one of them is willing to risk all and not one of them can find a banker or pension fund to share the risk.
Build a 20-30 storey building and wait for it to fill up ? Residential or commercial – it doesn’t matter, the deep pockets for such a project in Halifax do not exist. No level of government is willing to lease space at the prices needed to finance such a large project.
Risk all that you have gained in the past 30+years ?
Not a chance.
Armour group put their waterfront project on hold because of the convention centre proposal. Can anyone tell me who wants the space in a tall building ?
@dartmouthy: I think everyone would like a vibrant, self-financing, continually re-inventing city. That pretty much goes without saying.
But exactly how is skyscraper development critical to this vision? There is like zero correlation between the prosperity of a city and how many tall buildings it has. A shitload of cities with orders of magnitude more skyscrapers than HRM are in pretty hard shape. Tall buildings, if anything, are a result of prosperity – more tenants want to be in a specific location for a reason. That reason ain’t the tall buildings themselves.
Armor Group has been delayed by easement issues with the city for a sea water supply and return piping on Upper Water Street to their new Waterside Centre development. That and issues with underground parking on that site. Please check your facts.
hey Realist,
When you live in a country that offers urban areas no way of taxation or ways to raise money OTHER than property tax (we can’t even offer a bond around here from what I can tell) then skyscrapers = prosperity for everyone.
Without them we are offering up the same old expensive city services to a very sparse population density for the most part.
If we can start to densify the city, we can then really begin to plan for the future, and be able to afford to offer modern amenities to the citizens. Since we will have the tax dollars to pay for them.
But yes in any other country (America for instance) cities have much more self determinance and taxation powers, and development is much more free market oriented (and what IS free market oriented around these parts – not even gasoline lol)
I think a really interesting angle to all of this is what is happening at Kings Wharf – you know who are buying a lot of these condos?? Saudis that’s who! They are the ones financing this “boom” we may be on the verge of, and they are the ones who are snapping up condos and putting their money down now.
The angle being – people who are so anti-development around these parts might just be letting their xenophobia show… and are instead grasping at any straws they can to keep Halifax the same old white bread piece of shit town it has always been. haha. Just a thought 🙂
oldnews – I was referring to the Armour Group project on the land owned by WDC; like I said ‘waterfront project’. The one you mention is not on the waterfront but the old Imperial Oil building. Ben McCrea was on CBC TV months ago telling the reporter he would can his ‘waterfront project’ for 5 years if HRM put money into the convention centre proposal.
then you are referring to Queens Landing development. Just so you got the name right.
A 48 story building in this podunk fucking redneck piece of shit pirate shanty camp? Hope I live to see the day Halifax becomes a city.
Nobody’s masturbating over fantasies of NYC, Tim Biscuit. At the same time, not everyone lives in your socialist fantasy. Simply put: developers should be able to build buildings as high as they want, wherever they want, and demolish whatever heritage properties they own. HRM by Design isn’t dead: it was never alive. The only ones who believed in it were sad sack socialists and their half-breed cousins: the Coast’s editorialists.
Mr. Bousquet ,as usual, nailed it.
If you threw in a a piece of kelp, plus Anonymouscritic1 and added up the sum total of council member’s IQs the result would be less than the number of camels in Halifax. One has to question the purpose of any regulations that routinely gets bypassed whenever a few dollars are passed under Mayor Kelly and HRM councillors noses .
If rampant destruction of sound historic buildings continues to be replaced with condos for former desert dwellers Halifax will become the new Toronto . Anyone who desires such an outcome should move to hog town with their ilk!
The Chickenburger building has not been before HRM By Design. A small retrofit on Queen Street, close to the north end of Queen went through.
Tim is correct in that council always can have the last word if a decision by the Design Review Committee is appealed. Developers want to go through the process, however, because it can take as little as 3 months to be approved. A development agreement generally takes at least a year, sometimes more. Once approved by the committee, if there is no appeal in the allotted time period, the project can proceed. No council approval subsequent to the committee’s is required. The policy makes it easiest to “do the right thing”.
As usual both sides make so little common sence its sad, if i was the ruler things would change fast, over night there would be no welfare nor tax breaks, you guys would hang me in the end but u would be way richer in no time
I’ve heard some horrible stories about the different scams that have taken place and put a lot of families into bankruptcy . I think that it’s really scary that such circumstances have the tendency to take place. I’m curious, what it was that put the families in bankruptcy. Is it possible to see warning signs before signing into the particular scams that will ruin you? Is there a way to tell whether its a fair deal or just a scam?