Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
Still, it is hard to understand how so much time and effort could be expended on a proposal that is so off-side.
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They're confident they can get the variances.
The DRC has, as far as I know, only ever turned down one proposal. It was the small site on Barrington across from the Superstore's gas bar. The applicant sent an architect to represent them who wasn't actually the architect on the project (his partner had designed it), knew nothing about the project, was basically retired already and had zero enthusiasm for it, and couldn't answer any of the DRC's questions.
As it stands now, the DRC is set up to fail. By the time a proposal gets to the DRC it is basically fully fleshed out. Any substantial changes at that point can mean 10s or even 100s of thousands of dollars in redesign. It also means you have to restart the whole HRM design review process again (public meetings, staff review, etc.) which can mean a year delay to the project. The DRC has a lot of industry people who know what a burden this is; to impose that burden requires a very strong reason.
Also, because the DRC has a bunch of industry people there's a lot of hesitation to piss anyone off. I'm not at all suggesting that anyone is on the take or anything like that--the members are good people. But there's an inherent hesitation to piss off colleagues or potential clients unless you have a a very, very good reason to do so. You also have to feel like you can convince enough of the other members to be successful in saying 'no' or else you've pissed people off for literally no benefit.