About 150 people showed up at a public meeting Monday night to express concerns about a proposed downtown Dartmouth development.
Developer Darrell Dixon proposes to erect three apartment buildings near the intersection of Queen Street and Irishtown Road, the renamed extension of Pine Street. One building, just east of the newly rebuilt Greenvale School aprartments, would be seven storeys. A building to the south of the school and east of Irishtown Road would reach 19 storeys. The third building, west of Irishtown Road, would be 14 storeys.
Few people at the meeting directly criticized the height of the proposed buidlings—only three specifically mentioned height—instead expressing concerns about the massing of the buildings, and how close they would come to adjoining buildings. The distance between the 19-storey building and the Greenvale school would range from 2.5 to 30 metres, which one speaker characterized as “a wall around the school.” Residents in the nearby Canal Gate condos also expressed concern about the tower looming immediately next to them. Some speakers also criticized the project as poorly designed, with one saying it would be “an instant slum.”
The architect for the project is Troy Scott, who lives in Dartmouth and designed the new Bridge Terminal. Scott seemed at pains to defend Dixon’s project, pointing out that the buildings’ shadows would fall only on each other and not on adjacent properties, and argued that downtown Dartmouth needed the new residents the apartments would bring.
Some requirement would be made of Dixon to pay into a fund for a separate city project of “daylighting” the old canal, and installing a fish ladder. Walter Regan of the Sackville River Association stressed that the two projects should be dependent on each other: “no salmon, no apartments,” he said. That plan additionally calls for making Irishtown Road a cul-de-sac, with a pedestrian bridge crossing the newly daylighted canal to connect to Pleasant Street.
The Harbour East Community Council will make a decision on the development proposal later this summer.
This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2012.
Troy Scott ; ‘ building shadows would fall only on each other and not on adjacent properties,..’
I guess the buildings must be invisible, the two buildings will cast shadows on adjacent properties and that is why Mr Scott never produced the wind and shadow studies at the meeting.
Perhaps someone more familiar with the proposal can tell me: are we looking north-west in that image? I.e. is that Ochterloney at the top of the image? (Why do architectural renderings always lack context!?)
Anyways, the development doesn’t seem toooo bad. Maybe a little tall for the area, but with the slope it might not be too bad. It looks like they’re making an effort to have good interaction with the street on that building to the left. Hopefully they do the same along Ochterloney (they really fucked the dog on this one with Greenvale).
And becoming an “instant slum”? I highly doubt that. I know lots of young professionals with small families who would love to have a place in downtown Dartmouth.
Perhaps someone more familiar with the proposal can tell me: are we looking north-west in that image? I.e. is that Ochterloney at the top of the image? (Why do architectural renderings always lack context!?)
Anyways, the development doesn’t seem toooo bad. Maybe a little tall for the area, but with the slope it might not be too bad. It looks like they’re making an effort to have good interaction with the street on that building to the left. Hopefully they do the same along Ochterloney (they really fucked the dog on this one with Greenvale).
And becoming an “instant slum”? I highly doubt that. I know lots of young professionals with small families who would love to have a place in downtown Dartmouth.
hipp5 – Yes that is Ochterloney at the top. You can see Greenvale Lofts behind the tallest building.
What is your concern about how Greenvale interacts with Ochterloney ?
Young professionals with a small family could buy a house for the same price as the rents that will charged. Th whole development is rental and aimed at couples, not families.
Well my problem with Greenvale is that the side facing Ochterloney is a blank stucco wall with a gated door. Buuuuuut now I go back and look at pictures of the school before it was converted and I see that it was a blank brick wall with a non-gated door. I guess I can’t blame the developer for not adding windows to a wall that didn’t have them. Consider my words eaten.
hipp5 – i don’t like the blank wall but HRM required the developer keep as close to the original facade as possible when they sold it to him.
I tend to agree on the point of the design, yet the design itself isn’t taller, more slender, and less likely to cause shadow impacts, because this same group of people they are trying to oppose it wouldn’t have it – it’s been five years for this developer trying to get this going.
When someone shows up in my city to spend $70 million, I don’t have my knee jerk reaction set to “No”. The luddites input is valuable, as everyone’s is. But as an extreme. At that meeting they made sure to spend like 15-20 minutes each telling off city staff and just making general asses of themselves. I can’t imagine that plays well to city staff or council.
We can’t continue to have development policy driven by ignorance, bigotry (which reared it’s ugly head a few times at the meeting, like when an openly gay home-owner and friend of mine who lives right across the street from the development finally got his chance to come up to the mic in support of this project).
I know there are way more people focused on productive, positive improvements in this city. I know this project, especially with the involvement of the Sackville Rivers Association (they want to build a salmon ladder as a part of this project to give fish their route to the lake back), with the Canal commission (as they want to daylight the Canal as a part of this project) has a lot of promise, and that bonusing is happening because of the developers flexibility and vision, not because they are being forced by the city.
All in all – if I am simply a stooge for development, so be it. I’d rather be that than the opposite any day of the week.
We’ve had more than 260 years of “growth management” happening in our city, from various levels (The English crown, Canada, Nova Scotia, and our own city council – not to mention those with selfish vested interests because of ignorance and mis-information). Not any longer!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dartmouthn…
Hi Joe,
So pleasant to hear from you again. I’m really glad you posted , I have been waiting all night wondering what you would say!
Mr. Dickey may not have had any concerns, I’m not him and don’t know him personally so I don’t know. I thought when the vet came to the front of the room, got in everyone’s face and started shouting like a crazy person I’m sure he wished he had the authority to say something, lol. I’ll leave his feelings to him to explain – unless you know better Joey boy.
The wind and shadow studies were not available at the meeting because they are not required at this point in the process from my understanding – maybe you can school me all about that too?
The original price tag of the project at the meeting in 2010 was $60 million, but as far as I know it is now closer to $70 million. What do I know, I met the architect, the developer, and the urban planner hired by the developer is a friend of mine.
I believe he was amassing the land for some time before he presented his plan in 2010 – or perhaps it all just appeared like magic on the day of his proposal to city council – you must be right again Joey.
If your internet tough guy shtick ever gets old, come and find me in real life. Here’s a hint, I’m in the upper left of the photo on the CBC story.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/…
I’m sure the lady that used the f word (that is commonly used to disparage those of the LGBT community) as the gentleman was at the mic saying he liked the development, and had no problem with the height, but had some questions about the cul-de-sac on Irishtown Rd. – that must have been because of his development ideology. Please tell me what happened Joe, I’m dying to know. You know, because my memory is failing me I must need some help from a knob like you. Cheers.
Development is great, apartments give me pause though. You only need to look at 1 Oak to know why….
dartmouthy – You claim that sitting at the front and close to the architect and planner you heard a version of the ‘f’ word directed at an ‘openly gay’ man …..and you did nothing. Didn’t speak out, didn’t go to the mic to speak out…just sat ….silent. What a fine upstanding citizen you are.
If you heard it then it is reasonable to assume Mr Dickey, the architect and the planner( your friend) also heard the word.
If Tim Bousquet had heard any such word it would have been in this article, he doesn’t take too kindly to that sort of behaviour. Ditto the CBC reporter and the camera man and the Herald reporter.
Surely you can identify the female ?