Housing reality
I cannot believe HRM city planners are supporting new developments that do not have parking spaces included, such as the building approved for 2440 Agricola Street (“6 Halifax developments you should know about,” City story by Catherine Turnbull, August 15). This is supposed to be “a move towards more bike- and walking-focused mobility,” but has anyone tried living in this area without a vehicle? The nearest grocery store is eight blocks away. Not impossible, but a bit of a hike when loaded down with shopping bags and bulky goods.
Of course, the real payoff is the savings for the developer—as Turnbull writes, “a significant amount of money in the build”—in hopes this will result in lower rents. Such developments should be required to guarantee lower rental costs if they are going to get approval for buildings with fewer facilities. If this trend is encouraged by the municipality, the next move might be eliminating elevators to develop physical fitness among tenants, or removing electrical outlets to discourage energy consumption.
—David Smith, Halifax
Not saying she’s lying, but I think Chantal Caissie’s story is not the norm for Halifax—at least not yet, anyway (“Apartment hunting in Halifax is the worst,” Voice of The City, August 15). Last year I rented a two-bedroom in the west end for $830. The year before, a bachelor in the south end, steps from downtown, for $825. The year before that, a bachelor downtown on Barrington for $785. None were perfect, but they were lovely apartments. It IS getting harder to find apartments, but $750 for a bachelor with no windows and $1,250 for a dark one-bedroom seems more like the situation they have in Toronto or New York, not here.
—posted at thecoast.ca by portwallace
Sorry portwallace, but my experience last year was similar to Caissie’s. It took five months to find a dog-friendly apartment, and it’s way over-budget ($1,350 plus utilities). We moved to Fairview in the end because the peninsula prices were outrageous. This year, we looked again for something cheaper. I thought last year was bad. Wow, was I wrong! We’re forced to stay put, in a place we can barely afford, because somehow every dog-friendly unit is now $1,500+. Something needs to change! And great article addressing these important issues!
—posted by Jessielawrence8
Jessielawrence8, this has absolutely nothing to do with dogs. This is about people trying to find a place to live in a little port town that has been sucked into the global economy vortex over a slick of nincompoop city councillors, at least one of whom has publicly proclaimed his glee about this rental crisis because it means this city is just doing so damned good. This is about people who DON’T make 50 grand a year trying to find a place that doesn’t REQUIRE 50 grand a year, which no longer exists. It puts a lot of people into the homeless category if they don’t throw their dignity out the window and allow themselves to live among rats and cockroaches, backed-up sinks and non-functioning toilets. It’s a REAL problem with absolutely no solutions. It’s about long-term sustained suffering with no end in sight, and it’s about the encroachment of third-world problems into what was supposed to be a first-world nation.
—posted by Try_The_Truth
Saving whales
I have a solution to the problem of right whales being killed (“Why right whale extinction is on the horizon,” cover story by Chelsea Murray, August 22): Tag the whales. This would allow: 1. real-time vessel avoidance, 2. real-time science and 3. if entanglement occurs, real-time notification and location!
—posted by Eric Meschino
Corrections
We published two errors in last week’s cover story (see above). First, the whale in question is the North Atlantic right whale, not the North American right whale. And second, we over-stated the government’s emergency regulations limiting snow crab fishing in certain zones. We published: “If a single whale was spotted in a temporary-closure zone, all gear had to come out of the water, and the fishery was shut down for 15 days.” To clarify, the regulation only applies to the gear and the fishery in that zone where the whale was spotted. We apologize for not paying more attention.
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2019.