Over 60 people have signed up to speak at the public hearings this week for HRM By Design—the planning strategies that will control the development process downtown for the next 25 years.
With such public engagement and concern, I had to wonder where my increasing cynicism about HRM By Design comes from.
Maybe the oft-repeated claim that HRM By Design will “take the politics out of the development process” pushes me over the edge; anyone who says as much is either a naïve fool or (more likely) a liar—development has always been at the heart of municipal politics and always will be, and you can bet bottom dollar that Halifax won’t be the first city ever to find some secret route out of that reality. In fact, the grandfathering and exempting and loopholing began even before the ink was dry on the proposed bylaw changes at the heart of HRM By Design, and there’s no reason to think such political monkeying around won’t continue into the future.
Or maybe I’m simply irredeemably biased. The “young professional” group Fusion, which has come out in support of HRM By Design, annoys me; while they present themselves as some new breed of uber urbanists, its members are the same brownnosing networkers we’ve known forever, and they’ll join the same highly compensated and yet utterly incompetent managerial class that just destroyed the global economy and otherwise give meaning to the word “bullshit.”
But fools and bullshitters have always been tied up with city politics, and still I think we can get better public policies despite them. HRM By Design has its merits—a lot of them, actually. So while some annoyance with proponents is warranted, it doesn’t fully explain my cynicism.
It wasn’t until I heard Ron Colman speak Tuesday night that I figured it out. The head of GPI Atlantic, Colman is, well, wise. He truly understands the gravity of the multiple environmental crises we’re facing, and through his organization is attempting to put those concerns in the language and culture that the business and political world understands.
“We’re not opposed to HRM By Design,” said Colman. “But we think it’s premature.” Colman wants the city to implement a series of promised eco-friendly planning strategies—transportation, sustainability and energy plans—before adopting HRM By Design. Those plans, which have great merit and potential, could be undercut, depending on how development unfolds through HRM By Design. “We just don’t know,” said Colman.
That’s when I changed my focus, and it all made sense. We’re dicking around with fools and bullshitters saying a couple of new skyscrapers will turn us presto into a hipster Paradise, and meanwhile the entire planet is falling apart. Climate change is crashing down upon us, our energy future is uncertain at best and the world economy is in the crapper.
I don’t know if cramming a bunch of young professionals into 20 storey condos downtown is better for the environment or not—they obviously won’t be spewing greenhouse gases from tailpipes as they commute from the suburbs, but the money they save at the Esso station will quite likely be dumped into electronic gadgets relying on coal-generated electricity and air travel that will more than cancel out any GHG reductions.
The Ecology Action Centre suggests a couple of tweaks with HRM By Design—tightening up building efficiencies, basically. And while that makes sense, it’s just a faint gesture in the right direction. Meanwhile, the substantive changes that have got to be made, and made quick, if we’re going to avoid the worst of climate change—a radical transformation of our transportation system, finding and using renewable and passive energy sources to heat and cool our buildings, etc.—are left for some unknown future day, maybe, so long as it doesn’t interfere with streamlining the development process.
“It’s putting the cart before the horse,” says Colman, and I agree.
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HRM By Design goes to Halifax council for approval
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.
Why should it mandate energy efficiencies? That’s an entirely different jurisdiction. Maybe the EAC should be given that mandate so they’re not just frustrated bystanders. The ‘Plan’ should be about 3 dimensional planning with integrated mobility allowances and predetermined occupancies. Within it’s framework it must have forward thinking provisions ensuring alternative technologies aren’t squeezed out, or at least can be squeezed in, but it’s only town planning not a plan encompassing socioeconomic re-structuring.
It will always be subject to tweaking to meet socioeconomic dynamics, but it can’t mandate that from the get-go. Do you really want such a ‘Plan’ to take on that kind of responsibility?
Having too well a defined plan is dangerous, too much of a micro-managed plan will fail. You’re not so much biased as naive to think a plan can be cast that won’t need political tinkering. That is inevitable!
It’s taken 260 years for Halifax to come up with ‘a plan’ and you think it’s ahead of itself? All the petty little micromanaging bullshit should be stripped out and a simple skeleton of a structured planning guide left intact. Keep it basic. Keep it a Master Plan, don’t make it a Micro Straitjacket!
“[…] the money they save at the Esso station will quite likely be dumped into electronic gadgets relying on coal-generated electricity and air travel that will more than cancel out any GHG reductions.”
I’d be interested in how, exactly, you came to this conclusion. Living downtown isn’t a cheap proposition (especially condo living), and while the price of gas being as high as it is might mean some savings (compared to living far away and driving), living downtown can often mean transferring the cost of the car to the cost of rent or condo fees.
I don’t see the direct link from not owning a car to buying eight iPods and leave them plugged in all day. Unless you think every person who would live in a huge condo is some young professional hipster, technology-obsessed and buying up BlackBerries like candy — in which case, you should like, visit any apartment building in Halifax and note that not everyone who lives in them fits your idea of who lives in apartment buildings.
Owning a car is getting to be an expensive proposition *and* it’s terrible for the environment — but if we build high density apartment/condo living in metro Halifax (i.e. high density enough to make it cheap), the bargain can be a) cheaper living and b) no car. I know since I’ve moved downtown (compared to living outside Dartmouth and driving in everyday) I’ve been spending more money at the Farmer’s Market, or at local stores and especially restaurants, not buying up new pieces of technology.
Your whole “less car = more toys” assumption is something I’m having a hard time getting past. Even the whole “downtown = less car” assumption is a bit flawed; our transit system isn’t even that amazing in the core, and while the routes might be OK, the rest of it (i.e. checking routes, getting schedules, etc.) sucks (though hbus.ca has helped me hate it a lot less). It sucks enough that a lot of people who live downtown own a car anyway, to either leave the core or even just to get around when they don’t wanna take a bus/cab.
You also speak of better energy sources, yet woe the fact that people will be using technology in their apartments. While we’re moving to greener cars too, cars and in-home power consumption are two very different beasts, if for no other reason than that there’s no Solar-powered Civic on the market yet.
So what’s the deal? Are you just pissed off at Halifax urban planning groups because it’s cool? Because I’ve noticed, it definitely is the hip thing, and while there might even be some compelling reasons to bitch about our urban planning/future, I don’t see you providing any concrete arguments backed up by facts — more like vague generalities backed up by profanities and an evident history of being pissed off at HRM planning groups.
Opinions aren’t validated automatically because they’re opinions — posting this in the “opinion” section doesn’t absolve you from having to report on facts. Maybe you’re not representing the view of The Coast, and maybe you’re even taking a side (which I don’t necessarily think is indicative of bad journalism). But please, tell me *why* “[Fusion’s] members are the same brownnosing networkers we’ve known forever”, or why “they’ll join the same highly compensated and yet utterly incompetent managerial class that just destroyed the global economy and otherwise give meaning to the word ‘bullshit.'”
I read articles to get informed, so I’m serious; I’d love to know.
TofuMatt– google “Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate.”
But, expanding on, and getting back to the point of GPI Atlantic’s critique of HRM By Design– simply, and only, moving people into downtown buildings does not necessarily lower the total CO2 emissions. Frankly, without some detailed studies and projections, we just don’t know.
Those buildings will be of greater and less energy efficiencies themselves– I know that the Trillium building will have about a zillion high-voltage lights trained on the superstructure all night long.
People will still drive– possibly more than when they lived in the suburbs– out to Costco, to the movie theatres and so forth.
Most of the people living in downtown condos are relatively wealthy, and wealth is the best indicator of GHG emissions.
I’m not saying I know for a fact that carbon emissions will go up— I don’t. But neither does anyone know that they’ll go down.
Tim these are good points that you make, but I would argue that the downtown building aren’t in themselves the problem if folks are driving to the suburbs to meet their commercial needs. The problem is HRM’s continued practice of sequestering residential and commercial into distinct zones that make the city much less walkable. As you noted well in this space, we need much more mixed development in self-contained neighbourhoods to make our city more pedestrian friendly. Why SHOULD the best furniture stores and theatres be located in parking lot hell?
All I”m saying is those functional plans– transportation, climate change, etc— actually address those issues. But they haven’t been completed, so we’re doing all these HRM By Design changes in the dark– hoping and guessing that they’ll achieve what we want them to. They might. They might not. They might actually do the exact opposite from what we want them to do.
Better to find out before we make all the changes.
From what I gather, the scope of HRM by Design is to provide development guidelines improve the urban design of Halifax, taking into consideration social, economic, and (yes) environmental factors. If you want to have a discussion on how it fails on those counts, ok. But it hardly seems fair to fault it for not solving all the world’s problems.
I’m not sure why you think it’s controversial that high-density, mixed use development is more energy efficient than suburban sprawl. There have been abundant studies on this type of issue, even if it weren’t entirely obvious from the fact that this was the urban configuration in a past where energy was much more scarce than it is today.
I’m sure as time goes on it will prove necessary and desirable to alter development guidelines to accord with things like a regional transportation plan. Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see why HRM By Design couldn’t be altered retroactively to do this. In the mean time, I think the plan’s stipulations on things like parking and active transportation when it comes to the street scape are steps in the right direction.
And yes, it’s totally possible that people will blow any efficiency savings from living in a more compact urban arrangement on air travel, negating any energy (and thus carbon) savings. But this just goes back to my original point: we can’t solve all the world’s problems simultaneously, and incremental progress is better than none.
I also have to say that I find the ad hominem attacks on Fusion in the original editorial really disappointing. Can’t we just stick to arguing matters of fact?
Tim Bousquet – you are a valuable addition to this city and much of your writing is constructive and eye-opening.
However in this column you come off sounding like the petulant outsider in high school who has conflicted emotions about the “cool” kids. Your vitriol toward the ‘young professionals’ of Fusion seems to reflect a generalized dislike of a “type” of person. Luckily for you, Ron Colman of GPI Atlantic gave you some intelligent comments to hang your disdain on.
And no I’m not a member of Fusion, I’m probably too old to belong to their club.