Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
Now they want 7-storey apartment boxes adjacent or next door. In the right spots those would be fine, but not looming over peoples backyards in every SFH area, which is potentially what could happen. The amazing thing is that the much ballyhooed Centre Plan is essentially tossed out the window after a decade of work because the Feds are dangling a bag of gold in front of Council, which we know will just be pissed away on useless spending by HRM.
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I had mentioned before that my family had experienced this very situation many years ago.
My parents were not well off, in fact it's safe to say they struggled financially their entire lives, but they were able to buy a small, old house in the DT Dartmouth area, when the area was in decline and prices were low. While it wasn't much, the house was old and had many problems, the backyard was small, but there was a bit of peacefulness to being in the yard, which backed on a large lot with a formerly grand house on it. My mother loved her gardens, and would spend every free minute during the spring and summer back there, tending her flowers and vegetable plantings. We kids would play back there all the time as well - it was small, but it was our own little piece of the outdoors and life was good, despite the struggles.
One day the old house, on the lot bordering the back side of our yard, was torn down and during the following months an apartment building was constructed, coming just a few feet up to our back fence. It was great that it now housed many people, but it killed the feel of our yard, and our house, actually. The privacy we once had was now taken away because we were in full view of several strangers who had front row seats to our yard and the windows on that side of the house. In reality, the people living there probably didn't care what we were doing, but to us it just felt weird. Not to mention that we would now hear every party anybody had, or every argument, etc. This was different from our adjacent neighbours, whom we had been able to build relationships with and thus could afford one another mutual respect and friendship to a degree.
Many people here, on SSP, would say that my family's loss was a reasonable tradeoff for the increase in density, but when it's your loss it's a different story. This is all to say that sometimes it's important to see both sides of the coin, and I can see your frustration with the planning boondoggle (can I use that word?) of the past years that is now bearing fruit. Maybe if council/HRM planning hadn't decided to saw off many new developments on the peninsula and surrounding areas at 7 floors, there wouldn't have to be as much of a knee-jerk reaction to the other aspects that have allowed the housing situation to slide into the toilet as it has.
Now, however, we need to increase supply by any means possible, and there will unfortunately be people, perhaps yourself, who will have to take the hit like my family did, in order to just have enough places for people to live, at a price that's not unaffordable to most. However, I am also aware that complaining about a loss of privacy seems somewhat minor now, compared to the current situation of well-paid professionals not even being able to afford a small, crappy, smelly, creaky, outdated apartment on the peninsula. Halifax now feels like we are moving towards a quality of life that I used to imagine would only happen in a third world nation, where the few very rich people could afford to live in comfort while the commoners lived in poverty... only it's even worse than that as people with previously-prestigious professional careers are now living in poverty, fighting over scraps and wanting to tear the throat out of anybody who is getting in their way of living the life they deserve to live. Just read the tone here... people are angry, frustrated, desperate. Anybody who knows the human condition knows that when people become desperate they become capable of doing things they never would have imagined before... so I am saddened about the possible future that all may have to endure.
That said, I still believe that the possibility exists that this could be a temporary situation, perhaps if future governments put reasonable restrictions on immigration and bring back actual production to Canada so we can build GDP by producing things rather than artificially inflating population (and overwhelming housing, healthcare, etc etc)... and the many other things of which I am probably not aware, that have to happen for Canada to even approach the quality of life that we used to enjoy. Hope is the cornerstone of life, and without it, everything collapses. The people in power have almost succeeded in removing hope from the majority of Canadians, and it's a tough pill to swallow.
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