Special treatment for Nova Centre mocks HRM By Design

At its meeting tomorrow, Halifax council will almost certainly approve a staff suggestion that in effect exempts Nova Centre developer Joe Ramia from the planning and building rules that apply to every other developer in the city.

I say “in effect” because what’s being contemplated is not an actual legal exemption. Rather, the suggestion is that the city should ask the province to create an “Interim Planning Area” that consists of exactly one piece of property—the Nova Centre site—which will have its own planning and building rules, separate from the rest of the city. But that complicated legal manoeuvring is simply cover for the fact that, well, in effect Ramia is being exempted from the planning and building rules that apply to every other developer in the city.

Usually, building permits are not issued until a development application is approved. In this case, however, Ramia would be allowed to construct the below-grade portion of Nova Centre—two floors of parking garage and the floor of the convention centre (it’s not clear to me from the staff report whether this is the entire first storey up to the ceiling, or just the floor of the first storey)—while the development application makes its way through the bureaucracy.

Both Ramia and city staff think that it will take about eight months for Nova Centre to work its way through the HRM By Design process, including a stop at the Design and Review Committee. That’s about the same amount of time that it will take to build the below-grade portions of the centre, says Ramia. Then, with bureaucratic approval, the above-ground portions of the complex can be built. This schedule allows Ramia to meet the January 1, 2016 completion deadline for the convention centre.

City staff says there are risks involved with this approach:

Specifically, if the approvals do not reflect the building that is currently envisioned by the developer, parts of the underground structure may need to removed and re-designed.

This risk is being addressed, however, with the following:

That there be an indemnity and release agreement that places the risks of proceeding with below-grade construction in advance of municipal approvals for the above-grade components of the building solely on the developer.

In short, if the Design and Review Committee says, “hey this building design sucks, you gotta change it by doing X, Y and Z,” and if doing X, Y and Z means reconfiguring the towers in certain ways that mean changing the anticipated footings, then Ramia, not the city, will have to pay for ripping out the parts of the below-grade structure built over the next eight months, and rebuilding them to the new dictates of the Design and Review Committee. Ramia says he’s fine with this.

But let’s back up a bit and consider what the changes mean.

Ramia’s reason for asking for the exemption is that Tim Merry’s woo-woo public consultations over the design of the building—which heard input from maybe a couple of hundred people in Halifax, a handful of Chamber of Commerce types in Sydney, some Sobeys employees on a company-paid junket in New Glasgow and a horse and pig in in the valley, costing something like $2,000 per sentient being consulted (the horse had the best ideas)—resulted in a complete re-visioning of the project. Says Ramia:

We listened carefully to the public and responded to its input. As a result of public input, the original plans for Nova Centre were essentially shelved and an entirely new design took shape to reflect the public’s visions and aspirations.

The city tells me it received the full development application for Nova Centre Friday afternoon and will let me have it in the next couple of days. There are professional architects for a reason, so I’m fearing that a committee of aspirational citizens, Chamber of Commerce types and livestock will come up with something horrendous. Still, I don’t doubt that Ramia wants the best building possible, and thinks he’s getting it. We’ll see, I guess.

But this is a lousy excuse for an exemption from planning and building rules. The convention centre has been in the works for something like a decade. The agreement committing the federal, provincial and city governments and Ramia to action was signed on December 13, 2010. There was no reason the public consultation couldn’t have been held in 2011, and the scheduling problem Ramia is facing could have been avoided entirely.

And yea, sure, Ramia says he’ll bear the costs of any design changes inflicted upon him by the Design and Review Committee. But think this through: What happens if the Design and Review Committee actually demands changes that will require changes to the foundation and footings of the complex? Obviously, besides the costs of tearing out the then-built foundation and starting over, Ramia won’t meet the January 1, 2016 completion deadline. I mean, if he needs to get started now in order to meet that deadline, how can he possibly tear out all the stuff he builds over the next eight months, start over from scratch and still meet the deadline?

If Ramia is allowed to construct the basement before securing any other building permits, the political pressure on the Design and Review Committee to approve his plan will be overwhelming. The committee must approve whatever crazy design the aspirational citizens, Chamber of Commerce types and livestock come up with, or face the full wrath of the public, the politicians who appointed them and Ramia besides. If the committee demands changes, its members will be blamed personally for ruining the reputation of the city because booked conventions will have to be cancelled, for costing Ramia millions and for ignoring “the will of the public,” or at least the few dozen who could stomach Merry’s woo-woo.

This makes a mockery of the HRM By Design process. We’ll get a pretend design review, and Ramia will get whatever he wants. The entire point of HRM By Design is subverted.

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This article appears in Jul 18-24, 2013.