[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by spaustin

Partially correct. Density bonusing, when it comes, in the Centre Plan area must be accompanied by affordable housing. The city has no choice there as the amendments to the charter passed by the NDP said affordable housing must be part of the mix. In the Downtown Secondary Plan (what we often call HRMbyDesign), density bonusing can be for any number of things. Affordable housing is just one of them. So far, the uptake from developers has been good on a lot of the other categories, but not on the affordable housing side. Not sure if they just don't want to include affordable units in their developments or its the problem of defining affordable on the city side or if it's a combination of both. So far, it seems ineffective and my hunch is developers aren't interested in doing it.

I think density bonusing for affordable housing is a good idea, but it seems unlikely that it will make a substantial contribution to affordability in Halifax. I'm not convinced that compelling developers to include affordable units would be the best approach either. We're not Vancouver. The scale of development is obviously a lot smaller here and the profits earned are less as well. Really, I think the city and province need to get back into actually creating affordable housing. Take the development of the old Sobeys site on Gottingen. That's been in the works for years now and, my understanding, is project financing has been one of the hurdles. What if there had been a city fund to help? What if it had planning priority? If the city had a revolving fund to loan money to non-profits who want to build housing and prioritized affordable projects in the planning queue, that would likely do a lot more than density bonusing or trying to force developers into building units. Just my two cents anyway.

Thanks to you and Hali87 for bringing more clarity to this issue.