Quote:
Originally Posted by Colin May
My career opportunity arose in Canada.
My comment was a reference to certain cities in the US which require any development to provide a percentage of units for lower income persons. The developer doesn't pick the units and doesn't pick the tenant/s - a seperate agency makes such decisions. In a condo the owners of units would't know which units were occupied by low income persons.
It was suggested to me, by a representative of a developer, that such a provision in HRM would be acceptable if it applied to all developments.
HRM has chosen to ignore such a provision and prefers to barter for the ill defined ' public benefit'.
At City Hall 'Be Bold' is regarded as a slogan, not a call to action.
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I could be wrong, but I thought that in at least parts of Halifax, this is the approach. It's not necessarily required by law, but strongly encouraged, and many new developments (ie. the Mary Ann) do include such provisions. There are also developments such as the Bloomfield redevelopment and the two HTNS projects on Gottingen where affordable housing makes up a large percentage of the total.
Also worth noting that housing is technically a provincial responsibility. The province has recently launched
a number of programs to support low-income households and the landlords of buildings requiring extensive repairs so that they do not have to (/cannot) raise rents to pay for the repairs.