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Originally Posted by halifaxboyns
This human scale thing keeps coming up and to me is a non-starter. Human scale isn't just about the height of the building - it's about the design of the building at the street level (the street wall height, the uses at grade and how well the building blends with the street).
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Yes, exactly.
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Originally Posted by halifaxboyns
This is an area where, to me, having any single detached dwellings is a bad idea. This should be an area where parcel consolidation is encouraged and rezoning to some level of multi occurs (particularly the houses along Woodwill and Harris). The tallest, most intense stuff should front to Agricola, with shorter as you get towards the block before Gottingen. 8 stories in terms of the existing context around there isn't out of the realm of possibility considering its all mainly 4 storey apartment buildings and older commercial/industrial uses.
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I think we've discussed this here before, but I do disagree with this--the endgame here is the elimination of the historical housing fabric of the North End, which would be a disaster. Halifax only has a handful of good, intact historical neighbourhoods. There's so much room for peninsular and near-peninsular intensification that I don't think this is necessary, and I think it has the potential to ruin the process of incremental improvement that's already brought the neighbourhood quite far from its nadir. And if this actually happened (Agricola lined with eight-storey buildings and four-six storey buildings elsewhere) would make it the denses residential neighbourhood in Canada, probably--denser than the Plateau, but without the historical interest. I don't think it would be for the best.
In any case, as the neighbourhood becomes less renter-oriented and more homeowner-filled, it won't happen anyway because block consolidation will be increasingly difficult.
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Originally Posted by counterfactual
The appeals process in Toronto/Ontario is much, much, more limited. Without a question of law problem, you're not going anywhere. And if you can get the city planners to approve, your chances are pretty good. It's the difference between development certainty and development chill.
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Yeah, but by the time something gets to the OMB it's probably been in the approvals/appeals stage for several years, and the OMB has a bad reputation for running roughshod over local council decisions. No one, as far as I can recall, really likes the OMB unless it rules in their favour.
And while it's rare for citizen opposition to truly kill proposals in TO, when those proposals fall within planning guidelines, but it's
certainly not unheard of.
And it's rare here too, isn't it? When a project is legal and conforming to zoning, I can't think of many situations where it's been kiboshed. I can think of a bunch of situations, though, where council has permitted developers to exceed zoning. So I think it's a bad rap Halifax gets.
Spirit Place is a good example to the contrary though.