[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

If I'm reading the downtown land-use by-law correctly, the post-bonus maximums enshrined in HRM by Design would mean that the Westin Nova Scotian, the City Hall clock tower, the spire on St. Mary's cathedral, and the Dominion Public Building would all be illegal if built today in their current locations. (Maybe the AGNS buildings the old Bank of Nova Scotia too, though I can't find online how tall those are).

And of course there's the ridiculous case of the restored NFB facade, which won't get a recreation of the 19th-century the spire because it would intrude on a modern view plane.

Our height restrictions are not about preserving the city's historical character; they're about preserving a mythical idea of the scale of historic Halifax that's not even borne out by our real history. They were born out of (reasonable) fears that cropped up in the 1960s when developers starting erecting big buildings that were threatening to wall off the harbour. But we went overboard, and in the decades since we've allowed them to become sanctified and untouchable godheads, regardless of negative unintended consequences like the Doyle situation.

I don't think they should be eliminated, but they desperately need to be revised.

Revised in the purest sense - torn up and rewritten from scratch. The ideas were well-meaning but perhaps a little misdirected when new, but completely inappropriate and counterproductive now.