Willow Tree is in limbo. Armco’s proposed tower at the corner of Robie Street and Quinpool Road was approved by Halifax Regional Council this past spring at a staff-recommended, Centre Plan-inspired height of 20 storeys. APL Properties, Armco’s development wing, came back to city hall last week saying 20 wouldn’t work. The company had been […]
Development
Posted inNews + Opinion
Marc Denhez on the future of heritage
If there’s an expert on heritage planning in Canada, it’s Marc Denhez. The author and adjudicator has over 30 years experience dealing with historic preservation and planning issues all across the world. He chaired a government-renovation industry task force, and has been honoured by the Canadian Institute of Planners, Ontario’s Ministry of Culture and received a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Memories of life at the Elmwood
While researching this week’s cover story on the history of the Elmwood building at South and Barrington, The Coast ended up speaking with dozens of current and former tenants from the past 40 years. They shared their memories—and a couple ghost stories—about what it was like living at the ageing historic property. Here’s what they […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The fall of the house of Elmwood
“So much of mankind’s varied experience had passed there—so much had been suffered, and something, too, enjoyed—that the very timbers were oozy, as with the moisture of a heart. It was itself like a great human heart, with a life of its own, and full of rich and sombre reminiscences.” —Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax councillor calls for municipal lobbyist registry
At the next meeting of Regional Council, councillor Shawn Cleary will ask for a staff report on the creation and maintenance of a municipal lobbyist registry to keep track of the people and businesses trying to influence HRM. Currently, there’s no record of the consultants, business owners, property developers or special interest groups who bend […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Shaw Wilderness Park sets dangerous precedent for future land deals
Allan Shaw and the Shaw Group sold the land for the Purcells Cove urban wilderness park for $6.6 million—300 percent of its assessed value and $2 million more than it paid for the property in 2011. That’s how to make “corporate philanthropy and real city-building” pay. And in another altruistic gesture, they got HRM to […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
A glacial pace for Blue Mountain–Birch Cove Lakes park
The more time people spend in nature, the more they value it, says the Ecology Action Centre’s Jeana MacLeod. To that end, MacLeod and the EAC will be leading the public into the Blue Mountain–Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area this weekend for several bio-blitz events. It’s a chance to get people thinking about Halifax’s eco-diversity, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The end of The Oxford
It’s about the building, but it isn’t. For some, going to the movies is just going to the movies. Those people are fine driving out to Bayers Lake or Dartmouth Crossing and stepping into a photocopied multiplex—if you entered a Cineplex-branded building in Edmonton or Barrie, you’d know exactly what to do—and enduring the flashing […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tentative agreement reached for Purcell’s Cove Backlands
Don’t celebrate just yet. The municipality announced Wednesday that a tentative agreement has been reached to purchase the Purcell’s Cove Backlands, but Nature Conservancy of Canada program manager Craig Smith says the sale isn’t a done deal. That’s because Halifax and the NCC will share the $6.6-million cost to buy 380 acres of wilderness property […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Death of the cinema
The sale of the Oxford Theatre is a sensible business decision for Cineplex Theatres. It was part of the deal when they purchased Empire Theatres in 2013, but the general consensus from talking to family and friends in Halifax—I’ve lived in the U.S. since 2010 and last visited the Oxford in 2015—was that they probably […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Developer slams former planning chief over perceived snub
One of the city’s biggest developers claims he was ignored by Halifax’s ousted planning chief. It’s one reason why Danny Chedrawe doesn’t think Bob Bjerke was up to the challenge of leading HRM’s planning department. Last week, chief administrative officer Jacques Dubé dismissed director of planning and development Bjerke after three years on the job […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bob Bjerke’s dismissal moves Halifax back in time
I’ll preface this article by admitting that I don’t yet know the details of chief planner Bob Bjerke’s quick exit (read: dismissal) from his role at HRM. No one does, not even the rest of HRM’s planning staff or apparently Bjerke himself (according to media interviews). This alone speaks to the culture of elusiveness that […]
