Bringing the population to 1 million

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Do we want to bring the population to 1 million? Seems to me like Halifax has a pretty good thing going these days as a mid-sized, regional city with steady, moderate growth.

I kind of agree, but at the same time, how much the city grows, and how fast, is mostly beyond the city's ability to dictate. And the city has been growing very fast lately, with all the consequences for housing, transportation, etc. that come with it. This year might turn out to be different (Nova Scotia's population shrank slightly, as did five other provinces, due to a stall in immigration caused by COVID). But if things get back on track in 2021 or 2022, there's every reason to think the rapid growth will resume.

We're a long way from a million people even at that rapid pace, but still, we've been growing faster than even the most optimistic projections. It makes sense to plan for being a much larger city before we get there. The inadequacy of the Centre Plan is a good example--it aims for 130,000 people in the regional centre by 2030, up from 97,000 in 2016. Given the population growth we've seen in the past five years, and the amount of growth that's happened on and near the peninsula, I'd be surprised if we weren't close to halfway there already, with lots more to come. Yet we have lagging transportation planning and a growth framework (Centre Plan, again) that isn't equipped to deal with those numbers, and will likely result in more housing scarcity and higher prices.

So we may as well plan big. If we don't make it big, nothing lost, and if we do, we'll be ready.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Do we want to bring the population to 1 million? Seems to me like Halifax has a pretty good thing going these days as a mid-sized, regional city with steady, moderate growth.

This attitude is part of the bigger problem. It has prevented real planning for growth. It has led to the issues at hand. I almost could argue what I suggest should be done now, with the city being around 400,000. Way too many people have the small town attitude, and want to keep Halifax "small". Instead, why not plan for the eventual growth that will happen?

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I kind of agree, but at the same time, how much the city grows, and how fast, is mostly beyond the city's ability to dictate. And the city has been growing very fast lately, with all the consequences for housing, transportation, etc. that come with it. This year might turn out to be different (Nova Scotia's population shrank slightly, as did five other provinces, due to a stall in immigration caused by COVID). But if things get back on track in 2021 or 2022, there's every reason to think the rapid growth will resume.

We're a long way from a million people even at that rapid pace, but still, we've been growing faster than even the most optimistic projections. It makes sense to plan for being a much larger city before we get there. The inadequacy of the Centre Plan is a good example--it aims for 130,000 people in the regional centre by 2030, up from 97,000 in 2016. Given the population growth we've seen in the past five years, and the amount of growth that's happened on and near the peninsula, I'd be surprised if we weren't close to halfway there already, with lots more to come. Yet we have lagging transportation planning and a growth framework (Centre Plan, again) that isn't equipped to deal with those numbers, and will likely result in more housing scarcity and higher prices.

So we may as well plan big. If we don't make it big, nothing lost, and if we do, we'll be ready.

So, about 550,000 in 10 years?
Could the city handle that?

I'll bet that places like Halifax will be appealing after Covid. It is still a big enough city with all the amenities you need, yet small enough to not feel like Toronto. I could see many people that can work from home that left Halifax returning in the next decade. While the land is available to build on, much of the transportation infrastructure cannot support the rapid growth. Fixing those transportation issues will mean that in 10 years when Halifax actually surpasses 600,000, you can start having real discussions on transit and RT to better serve the city as a whole.

That is the next facet of the city; an LRT system. I ave some ideas, which include connecting all the existing transit exchanges.

[Dengler Avenue]

Well, just remember to keep housing affordable. Halifax has the view of Vancouver, but please do not have its housing price too.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Well, just remember to keep housing affordable. Halifax has the view of Vancouver, but please do not have its housing price too.

The joke amongst my friends right now is that the same apartment in Toronto, New York, and Halifax cost the same in rent. It's not entirely accurate, obviously, but is a good indicator of how limited supply is and how high demand is in Halifax compared to the other two.

[MonctonRad]

Halifax should be planning it's infrastructure needs for 25-40 years in the future, not next month.

The city is growing and will continue to grow into the future. It has momentum on it's side. Let's talk about the infrastructure needs of a Halifax with 750-800,000 people. Let's start building a couple of bridges and lets plan for commuter rail and downtown LRT/streetcars.

The time to do this is now

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Halifax should be planning it's infrastructure needs for 25-40 years in the future, not next month.

The city is growing and will continue to grow into the future. It has momentum on it's side. Let's talk about the infrastructure needs of a Halifax with 750-800,000 people. Let's start building a couple of bridges and lets plan for commuter rail and downtown LRT/streetcars.

The time to do this is now

If Halifax can't handle it, Moncton's up next.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by JHikka

The joke amongst my friends right now is that the same apartment in Toronto, New York, and Halifax cost the same in rent. It's not entirely accurate, obviously, but is a good indicator of how limited supply is and how high demand is in Halifax compared to the other two.

I see Halifax mostly headed in a Vancouver direction in a bad way though, with timid infrastructure development (Halifax much worse than Vancouver in that area, even scaled for size), somewhat limited planning for infill that revolves around imposing density and height limits, lots of artificial constraints on the new land supply in the suburbs, and now a not-so-great style of rent control in place. And people making lots of bad arguments about why these particular policies are needed even though they've clearly caused lots of problems in other cities that put them in place 2 generations ago. Lots of people complain about sprawl for instance but there's no fundamental reason why greenfield development has to be bad, and it's unrealistic to expect a city of 600,000 to have the same footprint that a city of 400,000 did.

One advantage Halifax has is it's much older and grew somewhat slowly for a long time so there's a big existing supply of development sites. Not so much in the historic downtown anymore but definitely in the outer parts of the core and inner suburbs. So it is comparatively easy to build large volumes of new housing without disrupting residential areas or building sprawl. But that's going to end fairly quickly at current growth rates. If the municipality sleepwalks through the 2020's it won't be in a great state in 2030 as far as affordable housing and economic development go. The core will still probably look nice, and will be a fun playground for the people who can afford it, but a lot of potential will be lost.

[Good Baklava]

Originally Posted by Citizen_Bane

There seems to be a broad assumption here that if this city were to double in size (an additional 500K citizens) that the peninsula would require more infrastructure both on the peninsula and to get on and off the peninsula. Let me suggest that even if the peninsula were to attract 100K of the new citizens the other 400k citizens could represent a larger more dense population off the peninsula. Could this mean a newer and perhaps bigger downtown developing somewhere other than on the peninsula? We have bylaws of course and guiding documents such as the Centre Plan to guide development but, given the city's reluctance to build viable transportation options relative to the peninsulas ie. traffic lanes and desirable transit options, developers may just continue the building boom at Larry Uteck and say to heck with the peninsula. Certainly you don't need massive bridges in the Larry Uteck area or in Burnside either for that matter. I don't think that we're in immediate danger of having 500K new citizens descend upon us but I do think there is some risk to our current downtown and that HRM should move sooner than later to build infrastructure that will guide where developers choose to build and citizens choose to live.

You bring up the very valid point that while downtown will continue to grow, growth patterns will change. Suburban downtowns are very practical for both residents and the city.

We have a habit to extrapolate current trends when projecting the future, but a detailed forecast factors in changing trends. I know many Haligonians who moved to the “Dark side” to be closer to Burnside. Let’s say those living in Bedford are commuting either locally or to Burnside, perhaps the need for a new bridge wouldn’t be as much as we thought.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Good Baklava

You bring up the very valid point that while downtown will continue to grow, growth patterns will change. Suburban downtowns are very practical for both residents and the city.

We have a habit to extrapolate current trends when projecting the future, but a detailed forecast factors in changing trends. I know many Haligonians who moved to the “Dark side” to be closer to Burnside. Let’s say those living in Bedford are commuting either locally or to Burnside, perhaps the need for a new bridge wouldn’t be as much as we thought.

I am not against the idea of satellite downtowns in places like Bedford. There are several satellite suburban clusters in Vancouver for example. It should be noted however that a distributed commercial base such as this will increase the need for regional transit and not decrease it (just because people may have to shuttle back and forth between these suburban clusters).

Again, there is no excuse for Halifax not planning for the future!

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Well, just remember to keep housing affordable. Halifax has the view of Vancouver, but please do not have its housing price too.

Originally Posted by JHikka

The joke amongst my friends right now is that the same apartment in Toronto, New York, and Halifax cost the same in rent. It's not entirely accurate, obviously, but is a good indicator of how limited supply is and how high demand is in Halifax compared to the other two.

Originally Posted by someone123

I see Halifax mostly headed in a Vancouver direction in a bad way though, with timid infrastructure development (Halifax much worse than Vancouver in that area, even scaled for size), somewhat limited planning for infill that revolves around imposing density and height limits, lots of artificial constraints on the new land supply in the suburbs, and now a not-so-great style of rent control in place. And people making lots of bad arguments about why these particular policies are needed even though they've clearly caused lots of problems in other cities that put them in place 2 generations ago.

One advantage Halifax has is it's much older and grew somewhat slowly for a long time so there's a big existing supply of development sites. Not so much in the historic downtown anymore but definitely in the outer parts of the core and inner suburbs. So it is comparatively easy to build large volumes of new housing without disrupting residential areas or building sprawl. But that's going to end fairly quickly at current growth rates. If the municipality sleepwalks through the 2020's it won't be in a great state in 2030 as far as affordable housing and economic development go. The core will still probably look nice, and will be a fun playground for the people who can afford it, but a lot of potential will be lost.

This all plays into building out the transportation infrastructure and having a good master plan. Just imagine if instead of adding ~150,000 people by 2030, it is closer to 250,000. I know it is crazy to think about it, but with Covid changing the wants of people with regard to living, rapid growth is possible for somewhere like Halifax. Only sellers and landlords want what is happening in Vancouver and Toronto. Regular citizens don't. They want affordable housing. Maybe this is an opportunity to increase density around the historic downtowns of Bedford, Sackville and Dartmouth. Taking the old towns that make up the existing city of Halifax and building them into their own could be a way to not only increase density, but make more of the city more livable.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I am not against the idea of satellite downtowns in places like Bedford. There are several satellite suburban clusters in Vancouver for example. It should be noted however that a distributed commercial base such as this will increase the need for regional transit and not decrease it (just because people may have to shuttle back and forth between these suburban clusters).

Yeah, I don't think it's a given that a multi-modal metro development pattern would reduce the need for infrastructure including around the old core. Multi-modal metros can be more challenging to build infrastructure for. Right now the province is spending $200M or so to build the new highway to Burnside to handle that traffic.

Generally speaking as a region grows there's more travel and more demand on infrastructure. The idea that the growth could come in the form of a kind of parallel city without much cross-pollination is hypothetical, fairly unusual, and sort of defeats the purpose of having a larger metro area with a larger market for jobs, etc.

This also isn't the trend we are seeing in Halifax. We have seen more and more focus on the core over the past couple decades. This will put less strain on infrastructure, all else being equal, but there are still going to be say dual income households in North End condos where 1 person commutes to Burnside or Bayers Lake. This dual income household where the 2 people look for jobs in the whole commuter shed is the norm.

[Good Baklava]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I am not against the idea of satellite downtowns in places like Bedford. There are several satellite suburban clusters in Vancouver for example. It should be noted however that a distributed commercial base such as this will increase the need for regional transit and not decrease it (just because people may have to shuttle back and forth between these suburban clusters).

Again, there is no excuse for Halifax not planning for the future!

No problem then, just make sure our satellite downtowns are well-connected.

I’m saying plan for the future with more detail, don’t know why that last bit is necessary.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Good Baklava

You bring up the very valid point that while downtown will continue to grow, growth patterns will change. Suburban downtowns are very practical for both residents and the city.

We have a habit to extrapolate current trends when projecting the future, but a detailed forecast factors in changing trends. I know many Haligonians who moved to the “Dark side” to be closer to Burnside. Let’s say those living in Bedford are commuting either locally or to Burnside, perhaps the need for a new bridge wouldn’t be as much as we thought.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I am not against the idea of satellite downtowns in places like Bedford. There are several satellite suburban clusters in Vancouver for example. It should be noted however that a distributed commercial base such as this will increase the need for regional transit and not decrease it (just because people may have to shuttle back and forth between these suburban clusters).

Again, there is no excuse for Halifax not planning for the future!

This is where something like a commuter rail system that goes on both sides of the harbour would really help out. Connect it with LRT lines and you have a very good way to move lots of people efficiently.

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

If Halifax can't handle it, Moncton's up next.

Moncton confuses me. How is it that they are growing so big? Halifax has the port. That is a major employment in the area. AFAIK there isn't such a draw there, yet it is the second highest population in the Maritimes.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Moncton confuses me. How is it that they are growing so big? Halifax has the port. That is a major employment in the area. AFAIK there isn't such a draw there, yet it is the second highest population in the Maritimes.

I have nothing against Moncton and I think it will continue to develop successfully but it is 1/3 the size of Halifax and growing much more slowly. Halifax added about 10,000 people last year and Moncton added about 3,000. Do people always bring up Regina when discussing Edmonton's future development? It always struck me as though the Maritimes are in denial about having a primate city. And don't even talk about Atlantic Canada as a whole because that's really triggering.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Do we want to bring the population to 1 million? Seems to me like Halifax has a pretty good thing going these days as a mid-sized, regional city with steady, moderate growth.

I'm of a similar opinion, as I don't see unfettered growth for the sake of growth as a good thing. IMHO, growth should happen more organically, but to be honest I'm happy with the size that it is currently. If I wanted to live in a big city I would have moved to one already.

So some may say that 'Halifax's small town mentality' is holding it back, but to counter that there are many who think that bigger is not always better. Everybody has a right to their opinions, of course.

That said, I'm all for bolstering our infrastructure for the eventuality that Halifax will continue to grow - like others have said, we should be planning decades in advance, not playing catch-up after the fact. In the long run, planning for the future is much more efficient than trying to make something work when it's already too late.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I'm of a similar opinion, as I don't see unfettered growth for the sake of growth as a good thing. IMHO, growth should happen more organically, but to be honest I'm happy with the size that it is currently. If I wanted to live in a big city I would have moved to one already.

There are different perspectives. One broad class of perspectives comes from those who've already settled, and another comes from those who are looking for new places to live and opportunity.

Halifax stands out nationally as an affordable yet urban relocation option. It's one of a small number of places in Canada where a new major metro could develop, and it is by far the closest thing to a major city in the region. It makes sense to lean into this role a bit and be ambitious.

If you yearn for the smaller cities and towns or remote wilderness there's plenty of that to be found in NS or around Atlantic Canada. Or even just the parts of metro Halifax that are not likely to grow as much.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Moncton confuses me. How is it that they are growing so big? Halifax has the port. That is a major employment in the area. AFAIK there isn't such a draw there, yet it is the second highest population in the Maritimes.

Halifax has the port. Moncton has the railway.

In addition, Moncton is central to the Maritime region as a whole, and is located directly on the TCH next to the bottleneck of the Isthmus of Chignecto, and the narrowest part of the Northumberland Strait (where the ferries ran, and now where the Confederation Bridge is located).

In essence, it is location, location, location.

This has led Moncton to develop as a logistics, distribution and transportation centre for the region, as well as a retailing and commercial centre. It is also the primate Acadian city (which makes it the francophone version of Halifax).

The city has diversified recently into a banking and insurance centre and has strengths in education and healthcare with two tertiary care hospitals with affiliations to Dalhousie and the University of Sherbrooke.

Moncton is not really a rival to Halifax, but we will remain the yappy chihuahua nipping at the heels of the Great Dane of Halifax.

[IanWatson]

I don't deny the need to plan for the future. Halifax is going to grow--no doubt about it--and we definitely need to plan for that and put the investments in place. But I read the initial post as being, "how do we make 1,000,000 happen?" I don't see any need to strive for a particular population number, as if that's somehow a measure of our "success" as a city. Halifax fills a really good niche as it is.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Halifax fills a really good niche as it is.

I used to hear the "Halifax is a good size, not too large, not too small" thing back when it had around 300,000 people. Now people are saying the same thing around 450,000. I suspect people will say the same thing when it has 600,000.

In the same way Halifax always seems to be talked about like a small town by people who have Toronto in mind. But both Toronto and Halifax have grown. In an objective absolute sense Halifax is much bigger than it was decades ago. I wonder how much of this is just post hoc reasoning or sliding scales and people getting accustomed to whatever the norms of the day are.

I see a lot of neighbourhoods in Halifax as being underdeveloped with holes and low densities that don't allow for the level of amenities they had even in the 1950's, although a lot of that is reversing now. And there are a lot of things people want that the market size limits. Sports teams and big retailers being some examples. Meanwhile a lot of the residential areas are basically the same as they were decades ago; it's unclear how the quiet streets of houses will be ruined by growth.

[Citizen_Bane]

Halifax really is a great place to live and it seems more and more people are figuring this out and want to relocate here. It's also great to hear that this healthy growing city is holding the interest of and providing opportunity for our young people so that they no longer have to move on to establish their careers and lives elsewhere. Anyway, the consensus in this thread seems pretty strong on HRM not doing enough in regards to planning for future infrastructure needs. We all know that infrastructure costs $ so I suspect that the consensus would also be strong in terms of keeping our city fairly compact and economically serviceable. I suspect that it won't be too many more years in the future that the peninsula will be essentially full with little opportunity for new development...certainly much less opportunity than exists today. It's in the interest of minimizing infrastructure cost and in keeping our city's footprint reasonable in size that I want to toss out the idea of rezoning the lower portion of Burnside Industrial Park...above Windmill and well below Burnside Drive. I know that Burnside is a bit of a sacred cow and rightly so being that it is the largest employment centre east of Montreal and Boston. But ever since I first stood in the parking lot of the old Princess Auto some years back and took in the view of the basin, the bridges and the city's downtown beyond, I've thought it a shame that the area was not residential. There is perhaps an opportunity on the horizon with the completion of the Burnside Extension and the opening of new industrial lots to incent the relocation of just some of the existing businesses. The city did a good job of revamping Akerley Blvd. this past year but Wright Ave. is a right mess. Many of the older buildings in this area are little more than grossly inefficient tin builds of little substance and even less appeal. Perhaps rezoning is just not doable but in my mind it makes sense that the people should occupy the nice space and the industrial warehouses occupy the less desirable space. This area of Burnside, with some exceptions, seems to be mostly retail, restaurants and food stores along with innocuous small businesses already and would mix just fine with multi residential buildings. The street grid in this area may need to be tidied up but the road network is solid. The area is serviced.
Residential development in this area could also support LRT circling the basin and then crossing a twinned McKay or a newly built replacement for the existing McKay that would be built with LRT rails. And besides, I think it would look pretty awesome to see this hillside dotted with residential towers.