After almost five years of consultation and studies, the final draft of the municipality’s new Regional Plan is online and ready for one last blast of public scrutiny. A public hearing on the plan—the very last stage before city councillors decide whether to approve it, amend it or reject it—will open Tuesday afternoon at city hall. Following a presentation from regional planning staff, citizens may take up to five minutes apiece on the microphone to let council know what they think of the document that will set the course for growth in the municipality for the next 25 years.
Stephanie Sodero of the Ecology Action Centre will be one of those citizens. Sodero and the EAC have been enthusiastic participants in the Regional Plan’s public consultations to date. Now, with a final draft on the table, Sodero will be coming forward to support it—mostly.
“The fact that HRM has identified key areas for future growth,” says Sodero, “we see that as a positive. It’s a focused, rather than haphazard, approach to development.” Sodero also likes the introduction of the open space model for subdivision design, which clusters homes together in new subdivisions, leaving a larger portion of land untouched by excavators and backhoes. And two new regional parks don’t hurt either. “Another positive is that they have a transportation budget of $150 million for the life of this plan and of that, half, or $75 million, is allocated for transit,” she says.
But it’s not perfect. The plan establishes a 20-metre development-free buffer zone around waterways, considerably smaller than the 100-metre buffer recommended by the EAC. And, says Sodero, the plan’s goal of an overall five percent increase in commuter transit use is “quite modest. So modest it could probably be achieved just given the status quo.”
All things considered, however, the EAC supports the final draft. Sodero won’t be so much pushing for last-minute changes as hoping there aren’t too many. “We are concerned about pressure for amendments to add more serviced development,” says Sodero, referring to the potential increase in the amount of land slated to receive municipal services like sewer, water, public roads and transit. “Essentially, that could undermine the whole integrity of the plan, both from an ecological perspective and an economic perspective. It will result in urban sprawl.”
Councillor Brad Johns thinks that the pressure to add serviced development has already been brought to bear. Back in December of last year, city staff and council agreed to a request from the Urban Development Institute, a group of land developers, to tack on an extra six-week public input period on the plan. This extra review period ended January 31, and the Regional Planning Committee has spent the last several months going through roughly 80 submissions and making last-minute changes to plans and policies. One of these, according to Johns, will result in a dramatic increase in the number of potential homes for Middle Sackville, homes that Johns says his district just doesn’t have the infrastructure for.
“This came up at the eleventh hour, which is my concern,” he says. “All along, the process has been consulting not only residents, but also councillors for the area. We would know where concerns exist and where they don’t exist. What has happened now is that for one reason or another, we are no longer looking at what councillors or the community has had for input.”
Johns will be asking for amendments to the plan that would put Middle Sackville into a type of holding zone for development, similar to its neighbouring communities, Beaverbank and Hammonds Plains.
“I’m certainly probably the farthest away from anti-development of anybody ,” he says, “but I’m concerned that development is not occurring responsibly. It’s occurring at the cost of the current taxpayer, and it’s benefiting developers, not residents.”
“I supported so that we as a municipality could get some control over development and stop being abused by developers. And that’s not what happened. What’s happening here is that developers are able to walk all over us.”
The public hearing on the proposed Regional Plan will begin at 1pm on Tuesday, May 16 at city hall. Arrive at 12:30 to be added to the speaker’s list.
This article appears in May 11-17, 2006.
RE Your article:’Good to grow’ and yiur comments…’ready for one last blast of public scrutiny’ My sense is that public ‘scrutiny’ of these HRM planning ‘visions’ has come mostly from the large number of lobby groups , who largely devised this ‘regional scheme’.The HRM municipal staff and politicians have never solicited a full and wide resident opinion survey that had any wide response, or has there been evidence of meaningful existing urban homeowner participation.The threats to our Halifax peninsular city community in this HRM ‘regional plan’are the HRM road contruction and traffic plans involving peninsular residential lands in low density urban neighbourhood zones. The HRM staff want to expropriate or change the use of the residential zones to more road use for dangerously frivolous reasons.There is no safety value in widening Bayers Road, most residential neighbourhoods in this area contain a high chilren, disabled, and senior population which the HRM traffic staff traffic management has put in a state of high personal danger. The Fairview Overpass is the source of a huge peninsular neighbourhood shortcutting traffic problem , encompassing many streets full of kids, seniors and the disabled. Surely, the Province has recognized the safety threat of the absurd changes to the Armdale Rotary, implemented by the HRM staff engineer,Rearshore, and his staff. I believe that the HRM traffic staff have no intention of traffic calming the many threatened peninsular communities, as they have many favours to pay to commercial interests.Indeed, I have inquired of Justice Nunn, the provincial conflict of interest commissioner, if there exists a breach of residential property rights and citizen rights to civic peace in conflict with these questionable HRM road plans..This plan threatens quality of residential life, will place undue and dangerous demands on water, sewage, road, and garbage infrastructure, while envisioning hugely unrealistic marine ‘transit’ projects, amongst many risky uses of public funds the HRM entity proposes. The unfit development is not clearly explainsed in terms of many constraints. There are far better reasons to consider making three independant municipal units in Halifax County. The work and commuter ‘destinations’ must change to redistribute the traffic in the suburbs, closer to where many live.Our peninsular city family neighbourhoods are fast becoming a valuable alternative to the suburbs. Soon family residential living will replace the trend of coverting upscale low density peninsular neighbourhoods to cheap student housing ghettos, near the universities.As long as Hugh Millward or any other lobby group is in control, no ordinary people should have much faith in this ‘process’.