[someone123]

Halifax should have many more heritage districts. Falkland-Maynard is another one, for example.

Maybe they should be called "character districts". I think the goal should be to preserve and amplify the city's unique character and quirkiness, not shrinkwrap large tracts of land. People should be encouraged to invest in and improve their properties in a way that compliments the rest of their neighbourhood (not just preserve old stuff, although that can be good too), and plain buildings or underused sites should be developed.

The Forbes Restoration type work is great and I wish more of that were facilitated by the city. There are many parts of the city that are just okay today but have great bones and could be spectacular with a modest amount of investment.

I agree that it's important to keep some cheap old buildings around too. I think the current restrictive building envelope rules are perversely encouraging the old buildings to be demolished long before that would otherwise be necessary because they happen to be tied to scarce higher density plots of land. Halifax needs new high density areas on the peninsula but out of downtown, explicitly allowed in a manner similar to HbD. With better planning rules I think many of the old buildings would naturally move downmarket and would serve as incubators for local startup companies, etc.