Halifax Regional Council this week kicked off with a budget committee meeting. The budget committee is the same as regional council except it has slightly different rules and it discusses just one thing: the budget. HRM’s budget is its road map for spending throughout the year. It lists the municipality’s priorities on paper and dictates […]
Council
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Y’all shovel-ready for this?
Halifax Regional Council’s committee of the whole rounded out this week’s budget talks by approving a list of capital projects that are far along enough in the planning process that shovels could break ground asap. (Or could be brought to that point relatively quickly.) This comes in the middle of back-and-forth discussions about which projects […]
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Provincial staff take a field trip to city hall to explain QEII expansion project
This week Halifax Regional Council heard from the province about the QEII Health Sciences Centre New Generation project—a result of pressure from councillor Waye Mason for more clarity on expansions of the QEII site that could see a large parkade built beside the Museum of Natural History on Summer Street. The need for parking, explained […]
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HRM’s budget committee settles on tax rate and extra spending for 2020/21
Halifax Regional Council’s budget committee settled on a tax rate and some extra spending for the 2020/21 year this week. The way the budget process unfolds in Halifax is set up to increase clarity and create more space for filtering out wants versus needs. The result, if given final approval from council, will be a […]
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Small tax rate increase, more debt to fund all of Halifax’s hopes and dreams for 2020/21
Regional council kicked off the new year with budget talks this week. Councillors heard from Jane Fraser, HRM’s chief financial officer, about how the dollar bills the municipality has, earns, spends and loans are all connected—and a new tax rate. Fraser explained what allows HRM to make money moves: The operating budget (revenues minus expenses—keeping […]
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Halifax’s accessibility advisory committee’s town hall dominated by talk of inadequate transportation.
A few dozen residents turned up for a Tuesday evening town hall discussion on accessibility in HRM at Cole Harbour Place. The Advisory Committee on Accessibility town hall panel included representatives from Halifax’s winter operations and recreation teams, 311 contact centres and more. Attendees made a point of discussing the state of Halifax’s accessible transit […]
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City’s affordable housing fund to get its first taste of cash
The Centre Plan’s fund for affordable housing will get its first influx of money after council voted Tuesday to approve a honking $1.8 million from Armco development group for the Willow Tree development on Quinpool Road and Robie Street. The large sum stems from the development’s plan to exceed 62 metres in height. Though the […]
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Three sidewalk vigilantes who can’t wait for the city to figure out what to do about sidewalk safety
I t’s as easy as look left, look right, they say. In Halifax, not so much, and fed-up citizens are taking matters of safety on sidewalks into their own hands. Matt Spurway, Doug Carleton and Martyn Williams say Halifax’s flawed traffic design, policies and infrastructure are partly to blame for unconscionable and avoidable traumatic injuries […]
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Flyer foes fear not, new by-law getting closer
Gone are the days of the Ecology Action Centre’s No Flyers Please stickers giving distributors enough guilt to keep their half-price blenders and donair-pizza-quiche flyers out of your mailbox or the end of your driveway. In an attempt to curb “nuisance litter” and ensure those who have opted out don’t get unwanted flyers, Halifax Regional […]
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The not-ready Centre Plan strikes back while moving forward
HRM’s Centre Plan is marginally closer to actually existing. The community design advisory committee reviewed all the land use bylaws included in the Centre Plan on Wednesday, and gets two more meetings to pick it apart, a version of progress that’s coming too late for councillor Sam Austin’s constituents, who blame “broken” bylaws for a […]
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Council to consider cutting construction costs for affordable housing projects
Council approved deputy mayor Tony Mancini’s motion to incentivize non-profits working in affordable housing to actually break ground. His motion asking for a staff report on what waving municipal construction fees for non-profits passed this week with an amendment from councillor Lindell Smith making sure eligible non-profits actually work within the realm of affordable housing. […]
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Council to vote on spending surplus money to keep tax bill down
O n Friday, council will decide how it’s going to pay for the grocery list of parked expenses approved for next fiscal year. At the last budget meeting, council hacked the list of $7,118,400 parking lot items almost in half, approving $3,704,100 worth of additional department expenses. The parking lot process, which aims to help […]