General Updates and News

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by mcmcclassic

One interesting thing to note in this though when looking at the tallest buildings in some of these other cities above us is that Fenwick (our tallest at 98m) is taller than anything in Kitchener, Victoria, St. Catherines, and is only ~15m shorter than London's tallest.

Realisticly, the height of a building shouldn't matter - it should be based on if the market can handle the amount of units going up. Take for example:

Building A -16 units per floor @ 15 stories

Building B - 6 units per floor @ 40 stories

Both have the same number of units, but one just takes up less land. Imagine taking a Clayton Park special like Grand Haven Heights and taking its unit count and stretching it upward in somewhere like the North End.... We have the ability to support taller than Fenwick stuff, we just seem to enjoy demolishing forests and such to build stupid super wide 10-12 story buildings in suburbia.

Thanks. That's what I've been trying to say. When you compare Halifax to other cities its size, it's doing just fine.

Agree with you on these stubby mile-long suburban apartment building, though. They could certainly be taller and narrower.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

Who is being "negative" about Halifax not having enough skyscrapers? This whole debate started when another SSPer suggested that maybe some highrise towers could be developed at the site of the current St. Pat's school, and was subsequently mocked for so suggesting.

It seems to me the only "overwhelming" negative people that are "down-in-the-mouth" and "crying-poor" are those being negative about the potential for success of some modest high rise development in Halifax.

As for whether Halifax is a bigger or smaller city, here is a list of the 100 largest urban areas in Canada by population:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_urban_areas_in_Canada_by_population

Out of 100, Halifax places at 14. Our population is categorized as "Large urban".

We fall just below in the ranks, but are comparable to: St. Catherine's-Niagara, Kitchener, London, Victoria.

Cities below us on the list: Oshawa, Windsor, Saskatoon, Regina, Barrie, St. John's, Kelowna, Sherbrooke, Kingston, Guelph, Sudbury, Moncton, Brantford, Thunder Bay, Nanaimo, Lethbridge, Peterborough, New Westminister, Sarnia, Kamloops, etc, all fairly significant Canadian urban centers and cities.

We're a city. One of the biggest urban areas in Canada. We can support 40 story towers and more. In fact, we can do a lot of things, frankly, we think we're too small to do now...

So Halifax is the 14th biggest city in one of the most sparsely populated countries on Earth, full of small and medium sized cities and only three particularly big cities. So what?

On the world stage - or even the North American stage - Halifax is a small city, no matter how it ranks in Canada. It is not a city where people would expect to see a particularly tall or densely packed skyline. Virtually no other city of its size has one.

And, as another commenter has noted, none of the other cities you've just listed have a skyline any more impressive than ours. Which is just what I'd expect.

That's all I've ever been trying to say.

I want to see more development, but I think the potential scale of that development in such a small city is something we should be realistic about. That's all.

No moaning, no handwringing, no negativity, no trying to undermine anyone's success - just realistic expectations, and a more positive attitude toward what we already have. Halifax looks pretty good for its size.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

We're a city. One of the biggest urban areas in Canada. We can support 40 story towers and more. In fact, we can do a lot of things, frankly, we think we're too small to do now...

There's this attitude though, that having 40 storey buildings is somehow a collective accomplishment that we could be proud of as a city if only we weren't so small-minded and backwards, the idea that 40 storey buildings are intrinsically better than what we have and somehow are something that we deserve for all our hard work... I'm not saying that's what you meant with this quote, but it seems to be where a lot of people are coming from.

I agree with whoever said that you're not going to find a city of Halifax's size with significantly more or taller towers. Even cities in New England with metros 2-3x the size of Halifax's have smaller skylines. Despite looking "better" based on arbitrary statistics, London ON is arguably sprawlier than Halifax (there's no real equivalent to either the Peninsula or Hammond's Plains... 90% of the urban area is basically like Cole Harbour) and its downtown is much less impressive in person. If you think Barrington Street is in bad shape check out the main streets of downtown London... Dundas or Richmond, I forget which one, but it's basically completely abandoned. Everyone I know from London likes Halifax more. Also the idea that Vancouver "isn't that high-risey" is pretty laughable...

There's also a lot of what I feel is misplaced doom and gloom. Sure Halifax has urban sprawl, but not to a degree higher than comparable cities across Canada and probably much less than comparable cities in the states. Sure downtown didn't see much new residential construction in the last few decades but the same is true of most cities in Canada. These are issues that are common to basically every single city in North America that changed at all over the last 70 years. Take a look in the Canada section at what is being proposed in cities like Kitchener or Hamilton or even Victoria and it definitely feels like we're 5-10 years ahead in terms of development attitude/ambition. We're probably slightly behind places like Quebec City and Edmonton (although Edmonton, despite building higher, is highly debatable from an urban design perspective). Then there are places like Oshawa which is probably about 40 years behind us in terms of planning approaches. All in all we are one of the more high-risey and dense cities in Canada under a million, and certainly one of the most progressive even including the big 6, despite what it would seem to those who only follow the local development news. I also disagree that the condo/apartment market is so underdeveloped that prices are outrageous/no one can afford to live on the Peninsula. Housing prices are pretty standard and $300,000 for somewhere like Bishop's Landing would be a steal compared to a similar condo in a city like Toronto or Calgary even Victoria.

The other factor that I think gets ignored a lot when looking at high-riseyness versus sprawliness is that Halifax has a lot of subdivided old buildings packed along narrow streets, which raises the density even if there are fewer highrises than somewhere like London. There is a higher overall intensity of land use in Halifax than in most Canadian cities, especially compared to those in the Prairies and SW Ont. Again, I don't think we're any sprawlier than the average city our size but I guess it depends on what kind of metric you're using.

[q12]

600,000 people within 1 hour or less commute (and they do commute).

Sheet Harbour is not in the circle so stop worrying about the 5 or 10,000 people out in the boonies.

We are a big and important metropolitan city in Canada. We have the 7th busiest airport in the country. Stop the negativity.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by q12

600,000 people within 1 hour or less commute (and they do commute).

Sheet Harbour is not in the circle so stop worrying about the 5 or 10,000 people out in the boonies.

We are a big and important metropolitan city in Canada. We have the 7th busiest airport in the country. Stop the negativity.

Oh, come on. This is silly.

Truro, Wolfville / Kentville, and Bridgwater / Lunenburg are not part of Halifax. You have to drive through 90 km of forest to get to any of these places.

What is this obsession with trying to pretend Halifax is twice the size that it really is? Where does it get anyone, or anything? It accomplishes nothing. It is just dreaming.

Halifax is a small, important regional centre that certainly punches well above its weight on the national scene, and always has. No one is denying that.

But it is still a small city with a perfectly decent skyline for its small size.

And, once again, again, again, I am in no way saying that I don't want to see more high rise development. I do. I'll fight the Antidevelopment Trust until my dying breath. I just have realistic expectations of what development in Halifax might look like.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by q12

600,000 people within 1 hour or less commute (and they do commute).

Sheet Harbour is not in the circle so stop worrying about the 5 or 10,000 people out in the boonies.

We are a big and important metropolitan city in Canada. We have the 7th busiest airport in the country. Stop the negativity.

And it is closer to 120,000 people scattered throughout the rural parts of HRM, not 10,000 like a couple of people want to insist.

[q12]

Originally Posted by portapetey

And it is closer to 120,000 people scattered throughout the rural parts of HRM, not 10,000 like a couple of people want to insist.

~10,000 in #1. The 120,000 figure you mention includes what most people would call suburban like Fall river, parts of Sackville, Porters lake and Tantallon. These areas all have developed neighborhoods that are not "scattered" (Halliburton Heights etc.)

Regardless your attitude about Halifax fits with most of the naysayers in this province.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by Hali87

There's this attitude though, that having 40 storey buildings is somehow a collective accomplishment that we could be proud of as a city if only we weren't so small-minded and backwards, the idea that 40 storey buildings are intrinsically better than what we have and somehow are something that we deserve for all our hard work... I'm not saying that's what you meant with this quote, but it seems to be where a lot of people are coming from.

I agree with whoever said that you're not going to find a city of Halifax's size with significantly more or taller towers. Even cities in New England with metros 2-3x the size of Halifax's have smaller skylines. Despite looking "better" based on arbitrary statistics, London ON is arguably sprawlier than Halifax (there's no real equivalent to either the Peninsula or Hammond's Plains... 90% of the urban area is basically like Cole Harbour) and its downtown is much less impressive in person. If you think Barrington Street is in bad shape check out the main streets of downtown London... Dundas or Richmond, I forget which one, but it's basically completely abandoned. Everyone I know from London likes Halifax more. Also the idea that Vancouver "isn't that high-risey" is pretty laughable...

There's also a lot of what I feel is misplaced doom and gloom. Sure Halifax has urban sprawl, but not to a degree higher than comparable cities across Canada and probably much less than comparable cities in the states. Sure downtown didn't see much new residential construction in the last few decades but the same is true of most cities in Canada. These are issues that are common to basically every single city in North America that changed at all over the last 70 years. Take a look in the Canada section at what is being proposed in cities like Kitchener or Hamilton or even Victoria and it definitely feels like we're 5-10 years ahead in terms of development attitude/ambition. We're probably slightly behind places like Quebec City and Edmonton (although Edmonton, despite building higher, is highly debatable from an urban design perspective). Then there are places like Oshawa which is probably about 40 years behind us in terms of planning approaches. All in all we are one of the more high-risey and dense cities in Canada under a million, and certainly one of the most progressive even including the big 6, despite what it would seem to those who only follow the local development news. I also disagree that the condo/apartment market is so underdeveloped that prices are outrageous/no one can afford to live on the Peninsula. Housing prices are pretty standard and $300,000 for somewhere like Bishop's Landing would be a steal compared to a similar condo in a city like Toronto or Calgary even Victoria.

The other factor that I think gets ignored a lot when looking at high-riseyness versus sprawliness is that Halifax has a lot of subdivided old buildings packed along narrow streets, which raises the density even if there are fewer highrises than somewhere like London. There is a higher overall intensity of land use in Halifax than in most Canadian cities, especially compared to those in the Prairies and SW Ont. Again, I don't think we're any sprawlier than the average city our size but I guess it depends on what kind of metric you're using.

Yup, this is what I'm talking about. The constant expression that because we don't have 40 story towers, we must be small minded and backwards, and because we are so small minded and backwards, we're failing to build the 40 story towers that all those other cities our size surely must have.



Except all those other cities we're talking about are usually a lot bigger than us, and when we turn our attention to cities that really are our size, we find they don't have particularly impressive skylines either. And they just have a few high-rises downtown. They don't have high-rises all over the city like Halifax is beginning to have.

But we don't want to hear that because it flies in the face of our argument, so we turn back to stretching the imagination to try to argue that Halifax is really two to three times the size that it really is.

And trying to point out some of these flawed arguments apparently gets you lumped in with the anti-development crowd, even though you are here to cheer on the developments that are happening or that are proposed.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by q12

Regardless your attitude about Halifax fits with most of the naysayers in this province.

Case in point.

I have said about 30 flattering and positive things about Halifax and how well situated and impressive it is relative to other cities its size, but I am labelled a "naysayer" because I point out that it isn't a city of 600,000 people as some people want to pretend.

Oh well, let's not let facts get in the way of our bellyaching about how backwards and small minded everyone is!

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Hali87

There's this attitude though, that having 40 storey buildings is somehow a collective accomplishment that we could be proud of as a city if only we weren't so small-minded and backwards, the idea that 40 storey buildings are intrinsically better than what we have and somehow are something that we deserve for all our hard work... I'm not saying that's what you meant with this quote, but it seems to be where a lot of people are coming from.

Indeed. This is the big fallacy, and it's entirely untrue—I mean 100 percent untrue. You hear this all the time, and I feel like there are Haligonians who really think that there's some sort of direct causal relationship between the tallness of our buildings and the number of jobs in the city or the number of young people who stay here, or something.

Anyway, I think the only thing that me and Portapetey meant above was a reaction to the more extreme supertall dreams. People are questioning the demand for supertalls in Toronto, even, so to imagine that Robie and Quinpool could support "at least" "a couple" of towers at "50 storeys plus" is indeed a bit, well, ridiculous.

As was the suggestion a few months ago here that the Cogswell site, when redeveloped, should be wall-to-wall supertalls. When I suggested that this would be essentially impossible given our real estate market, I was accused of not thinking big enough.

We all like highrises, and in fact, we live in a city that boasts a good number of them for our size. People keep mentioning that London has more highrises—maybe, but many of them are drab quasi-urban apartment towers from the 60s and 70s, of the sort Ontario cities excel at warehousing their poorer citizens in. They're not anything to envy. (In any case, London is way behind Halifax in virtually everything. We don't want to be like London.)

There is such an enormous misperception that Halifax is backwards or behind the times or anti-development, and that if not for all the naysayers and NIMBYs we would be booming.

If Halifax got a (good) supertall, I'd be thrilled. But to suggest that we don't have one because of small-time thinking or our intrinsic backwardness is not true, at all (IMO).

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by Hali87

There's also a lot of what I feel is misplaced doom and gloom. Sure Halifax has urban sprawl, but not to a degree higher than comparable cities across Canada and probably much less than comparable cities in the states. Sure downtown didn't see much new residential construction in the last few decades but the same is true of most cities in Canada. These are issues that are common to basically every single city in North America that changed at all over the last 70 years.

We throw around the term "sprawl" a lot, but if you look at pre-amalgamation maps of Halifax, Dartmouth and Bedford, you'll find that a good chunk of the off-peninsula development occurred within the pre-existing city/town boundaries. Mount Royale, Long Lake Village and even Bayers Lake expansion are within Old Halifax. Larry Uteck runs through the old border between Halifax and Bedford, and even Sandy Lake and Bedford West are within Bedford's old boundaries. Had amalgamation not happened, you would still be seeing projects being built in these areas, though Larry Uteck might have been angled differently. What I consider to be true sprawl is places like Kingswood I and II, Glen Arbour, and Stillwater. Useless mansions a mile apart, no sidewalks, nothing to do within walking distance, and started our downward spiral in terms of commute time.

Yes, Larry Uteck and the like could have been built more intelligently, absolutely. To call them sprawl is a little much, considering the never-amalgamated City of Halifax that exists in a different universe, would be looking to build on these lands as well.



Quite frankly, we have one of the prettier skylines in Canada, if not North America. The only thing it's missing is, well, variety of height. I agree that 50-60 storeys is out of reach for the time being. I will settle for 30 storeys downtown at this point. 40 storeys will come with time, probably near the end of the scope of the Regional Plan. If the city continues to miss its targets for the Regional Centre growth, they may feel some pressure to "hit a six-run homer" and permit a couple of 40+'s to add a quick couple of thousand people to the core.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Anyway, I think the only thing that me and Portapetey meant above was a reaction to the more extreme supertall dreams. People are questioning the demand for supertalls in Toronto, even, so to imagine that Robie and Quinpool could support "at least" "a couple" of towers at "50 storeys plus" is indeed a bit, well, ridiculous.

As was the suggestion a few months ago here that the Cogswell site, when redeveloped, should be wall-to-wall supertalls. When I suggested that this would be essentially impossible given our real estate market, I was accused of not thinking big enough.

Correct. My comments weren't directed at any particular individual but at the Robie & Quinpool and Cogswell scenarios that did indeed have a few people saying we should put up multiple 50 story buildings, which i believe to be very unrealistic given the size of Halifax.

Originally Posted by Drybrain

People keep mentioning that London has more highrises—maybe, but many of them are drab quasi-urban apartment towers from the 60s and 70s, of the sort Ontario cities excel at warehousing their poorer citizens in.

Here is the legendary downtown of the great London metropolis from the air:



And a broader view for good measure:



Here is the puny, behind-the-times, small-minded, and backwards NIMBY Halifax downtown from the air:



And a broader view for good measure:



The two cities are quite comparable.

London does appear to have three or four buildings that are marginally taller than the ones in Halifax.

It also appears to be decidedly low- or no-rise outside of its downtown, unlike Halifax which has a variety of building heights all over the city.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by curnhalio

We throw around the term "sprawl" a lot, but if you look at pre-amalgamation maps of Halifax, Dartmouth and Bedford, you'll find that a good chunk of the off-peninsula development occurred within the pre-existing city/town boundaries. Mount Royale, Long Lake Village and even Bayers Lake expansion are within Old Halifax. Larry Uteck runs through the old border between Halifax and Bedford, and even Sandy Lake and Bedford West are within Bedford's old boundaries. Had amalgamation not happened, you would still be seeing projects being built in these areas, though Larry Uteck might have been angled differently. What I consider to be true sprawl is places like Kingswood I and II, Glen Arbour, and Stillwater. Useless mansions a mile apart, no sidewalks, nothing to do within walking distance, and started our downward spiral in terms of commute time.

Yes, Larry Uteck and the like could have been built more intelligently, absolutely. To call them sprawl is a little much, considering the never-amalgamated City of Halifax that exists in a different universe, would be looking to build on these lands as well.



Quite frankly, we have one of the prettier skylines in Canada, if not North America. The only thing it's missing is, well, variety of height. I agree that 50-60 storeys is out of reach for the time being. I will settle for 30 storeys downtown at this point. 40 storeys will come with time, probably near the end of the scope of the Regional Plan. If the city continues to miss its targets for the Regional Centre growth, they may feel some pressure to "hit a six-run homer" and permit a couple of 40+'s to add a quick couple of thousand people to the core.

Agreed 100%. This is the more succinct version of what I've been trying to say (and more), without all the futile attempts to clarify misleading statistics.

[mcmcclassic]

Here is the puny, behind-the-times, small-minded, and backwards NIMBY Halifax downtown from the air:



And that pic is from a few years ago!

BTW our local SSP page I think has some of the most activity out of all the local Canada pages. This is because 1) we have awesome contributors but more importantly 2) BECAUSE WE ARE BUILDING LOTS OF STUFF. I know we see a ton of NIMBYism here, but go look at some of the other cities' pages and you'll see their forumers getting excited about 8-10 storey projects...

Hell, we have two buildings u/c that would qualify for the HIGHRISE section of SSP...

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Hali87

There's this attitude though, that having 40 storey buildings is somehow a collective accomplishment that we could be proud of as a city if only we weren't so small-minded and backwards, the idea that 40 storey buildings are intrinsically better than what we have and somehow are something that we deserve for all our hard work... I'm not saying that's what you meant with this quote, but it seems to be where a lot of people are coming from.

I agree with whoever said that you're not going to find a city of Halifax's size with significantly more or taller towers. Even cities in New England with metros 2-3x the size of Halifax's have smaller skylines. Despite looking "better" based on arbitrary statistics, London ON is arguably sprawlier than Halifax (there's no real equivalent to either the Peninsula or Hammond's Plains... 90% of the urban area is basically like Cole Harbour) and its downtown is much less impressive in person. If you think Barrington Street is in bad shape check out the main streets of downtown London... Dundas or Richmond, I forget which one, but it's basically completely abandoned. Everyone I know from London likes Halifax more. Also the idea that Vancouver "isn't that high-risey" is pretty laughable...

There's also a lot of what I feel is misplaced doom and gloom. Sure Halifax has urban sprawl, but not to a degree higher than comparable cities across Canada and probably much less than comparable cities in the states. Sure downtown didn't see much new residential construction in the last few decades but the same is true of most cities in Canada. These are issues that are common to basically every single city in North America that changed at all over the last 70 years. Take a look in the Canada section at what is being proposed in cities like Kitchener or Hamilton or even Victoria and it definitely feels like we're 5-10 years ahead in terms of development attitude/ambition. We're probably slightly behind places like Quebec City and Edmonton (although Edmonton, despite building higher, is highly debatable from an urban design perspective). Then there are places like Oshawa which is probably about 40 years behind us in terms of planning approaches. All in all we are one of the more high-risey and dense cities in Canada under a million, and certainly one of the most progressive even including the big 6, despite what it would seem to those who only follow the local development news. I also disagree that the condo/apartment market is so underdeveloped that prices are outrageous/no one can afford to live on the Peninsula. Housing prices are pretty standard and $300,000 for somewhere like Bishop's Landing would be a steal compared to a similar condo in a city like Toronto or Calgary even Victoria.

The other factor that I think gets ignored a lot when looking at high-riseyness versus sprawliness is that Halifax has a lot of subdivided old buildings packed along narrow streets, which raises the density even if there are fewer highrises than somewhere like London. There is a higher overall intensity of land use in Halifax than in most Canadian cities, especially compared to those in the Prairies and SW Ont. Again, I don't think we're any sprawlier than the average city our size but I guess it depends on what kind of metric you're using.

Very well written. Many good points!

[Drybrain]

I spent 20 minutes this morning arguing (politely) with a co-worker who thinks that renovating the Forum instead of tearing it down and building new is an example of our obsession with trying to keep Halifax as a 19th century village.

This discussion about height, like the discussion about heritage, is predicated on this completely false idea that we're a living-in-the-past non-metropolis dominated by NIMBYs. It's just not true. (Or, no truer than it is elsewhere.)

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

Out of curiosity, perhaps you could share the sources you're using? You say that they're free and publicly available, so I wouldn't think it would be an issue.

I'm not trying to argue or dispute what you say, but it's difficult to verify/interpret the data when it's all coming through a single person. It could also be of use to the rest of the people here. It would also mean that you'd have to spend less time repeating yourself when people can just go check for themselves.

Not all sources are free. Online usage of Explore HRM is quite useful with many layers and lots of info.
Viwepoint.ca is free and requires registration - easy to use but not as easy as it could be. The Registry of Deeds charges an annual fee for online access and casual visitors pay by the half day and pay for paper copies. Takes a long time when searching condos. Staff are very helpful. PVSC is free online - correct spelling is essential, could be improved and last week they made changes to their system and it is causing a few problems. Registry of Joint Stocks is free online - could be better but we can't always have a Rolls Royce so a Chevy will just have to do.
If you have research experience and an ability to think outside the box you can find data quite quickly. Intuition is essential. An understanding of certain legal terms is very useful. Business experience is also useful. Contacts in the industry such as planners, architects, realtors, lawyers, constructors are good sources.
When researching any subject healthy scepticism is essential and the same applies to media reports.
Or just drive or walk by at night and check out how many rooms are lit and in the daytime look for furniture/BBQ on the balconies.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by portapetey

Yup, this is what I'm talking about. The constant expression that because we don't have 40 story towers, we must be small minded and backwards, and because we are so small minded and backwards, we're failing to build the 40 story towers that all those other cities our size surely must have.



Except all those other cities we're talking about are usually a lot bigger than us, and when we turn our attention to cities that really are our size, we find they don't have particularly impressive skylines either. And they just have a few high-rises downtown. They don't have high-rises all over the city like Halifax is beginning to have.

But we don't want to hear that because it flies in the face of our argument, so we turn back to stretching the imagination to try to argue that Halifax is really two to three times the size that it really is.

And trying to point out some of these flawed arguments apparently gets you lumped in with the anti-development crowd, even though you are here to cheer on the developments that are happening or that are proposed.

Good points.

I haven't read through all the posts in great detail, so this may have been mentioned already, but what about the financial considerations of tall vs wide?

I have observed a lot of bellyaching about our "backwards" area where we would rather build short squat buildings than tall slim ones and that the citizens, who are mainly NIMBYs, dictate what gets built and what doesn't. This attitude seems to be based on a concept that the ideal city is one that arrives at a certain aesthetic which includes lots of tall buildings, and if we fall below this idealistic view then we have a poor city run by idiotic politicians who don't understand what it takes to make a "real" city.

However we must remember that developers are businesspeople. Of course, I'm sure that most want to build attractive, desirable buildings as that theoretically will attract more tenants. But what is the cost of building high and thin vs building short and wide? Of course land purchase costs will typically be greater with a short, wide building. However, building tall is much more difficult than building squat - the taller the building the more tendency it will have to fall over due to its higher center of gravity, thus necessitating structural compensation to prevent this. Fill them full of glass panels and then heating and air conditioning costs may go up. Environmental factors such as increased wind speed at height will have to be taken into consideration as well. Not to mention digging deeper to provide structural anchorage and underground parking for the tenants.

So what would be the relative cost of two buildings that have the same number of units but, for example, one that is 7 storeys tall and the other 40 storeys tall?

It seems to me that cost vs return would be a much stronger argument than that Halifax deserves to have "X" number of tall buildings due to its population. It would be interesting to see this from the point of view of a developer who is putting his business on the line each time he/she commits to a new building project.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by mcmcclassic

Here is the puny, behind-the-times, small-minded, and backwards NIMBY Halifax downtown from the air:



And that pic is from a few years ago!

BTW our local SSP page I think has some of the most activity out of all the local Canada pages. This is because 1) we have awesome contributors but more importantly 2) BECAUSE WE ARE BUILDING LOTS OF STUFF. I know we see a ton of NIMBYism here, but go look at some of the other cities' pages and you'll see their forumers getting excited about 8-10 storey projects...

Hell, we have two buildings u/c that would qualify for the HIGHRISE section of SSP...

Ooohhhhh, highrise! :-D

We do have a ton of NIMBYism here. It is depressing. I agree with people on that. I loathe the Antidevelopment Trust as much as anyone.

And it is sort of irksome to be lumped in with the anti-development NIMBY crowd just for pointing out that we should be comparing ourselves to other small cities rather than to the much bigger ones we somehow think we should be in the same league with.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Good points.

I haven't read through all the posts in great detail, so this may have been mentioned already, but what about the financial considerations of tall vs wide?

I have observed a lot of bellyaching about our "backwards" area where we would rather build short squat buildings than tall slim ones and that the citizens, who are mainly NIMBYs, dictate what gets built and what doesn't. This attitude seems to be based on a concept that the ideal city is one that arrives at a certain aesthetic which includes lots of tall buildings, and if we fall below this idealistic view then we have a poor city run by idiotic politicians who don't understand what it takes to make a "real" city.

However we must remember that developers are businesspeople. Of course, I'm sure that most want to build attractive, desirable buildings as that theoretically will attract more tenants. But what is the cost of building high and thin vs building short and wide? Of course land purchase costs will typically be greater with a short, wide building. However, building tall is much more difficult than building squat - the taller the building the more tendency it will have to fall over due to its higher center of gravity, thus necessitating structural compensation to prevent this. Fill them full of glass panels and then heating and air conditioning costs may go up. Environmental factors such as increased wind speed at height will have to be taken into consideration as well. Not to mention digging deeper to provide structural anchorage and underground parking for the tenants.

So what would be the relative cost of two buildings that have the same number of units but, for example, one that is 7 storeys tall and the other 40 storeys tall?

It seems to me that cost vs return would be a much stronger argument than that Halifax deserves to have "X" number of tall buildings due to its population. It would be interesting to see this from the point of view of a developer who is putting his business on the line each time he/she commits to a new building project.

Tall versus wide has been mentioned in passing in this thread. I think a couple of us do feel it would be nice to see some of these miles-long 3 story buildings turned on their sides to become mile-high, narrow buildings, but we also understand that that's not necessarily feasible or even where suburbanites want to live.