Quote:
Originally Posted by Colin May
The property abuts the Dartmouth Common. The developer wants to buy/lease the space between the sign and Nantucket. The exit from the property to the north is on Common land and has legislated restrictions.
In the application the architect quotes outdated legislation. I wrote to him to detail the accurate parts of the legislation passed by the Dexter government.
https://www.halifax.ca/business/plan...e-rd-dartmouth
The letter from the architect is here : https://www.halifax.ca/business/plan...e-rd-dartmouth
note page 3 has the outdated/inaccurate reference to the Dartmouth Common legislation.
The Dartmouth Common Master Plan envisaged this corner returning to public ownership. The plan was 'adopted in principle' but HRM staff interpret the phrase to mean whatever they want it to mean.
In 1960 a planning consultant recommended that all land from Dartmouth High to Windmill Road be retained as green space. |
Interesting, but those lands down from Dartmouth High have never really been used as 'green space' for as long as I can remember. Until the wooded area west of the football field was cut down to build a bus terminal, the only people using that area were DHS students who wanted to smoke up. Below the terminal, the land was used for the Dartmouth arena until it burnt down in the 1970s, after which the Sportsplex was built. The location for this building was a used car lot and now a bank.
Normally, I would be all for the commons being used as public land, and if the planning consultant had been able to gain traction with council in 1960, then it could have been converted and used as such. In its current configuration, however, it is quite cut off from public lands and thus a park would seem silly and out of place on that corner lot. A building such as this proposal is actually the best use that I can imagine for this land, and could possible set the tone for more such developments on other vacant lots in the area.
Here are some pics from the
Municipal Archives showing how the area appeared in the 1960s - 1980s:
