Conservation Districts

[Aegon123]

What do you think would help tidy up some of Halifax’s conservation districts? I really want to see an effort into putting wiring underground (it’s especially bad in Schmidtville), installing historically inspired street lamps (particularly Old South Suburb), adding more benches, adding signage (especially for the Old South Suburb which has so many cool buildings associated with some big figures), and maybe sidewalk repairs similar to what’s taking place on Spring. I know this is planned, but I hope it comes sooner rather than later as it could really make these areas very attractive.

On a separate note, I’d really like to see the proposed Capital District include Spring Garden Road up until the new Library/Doyle, and extend down Grafton until the Nova Centre. There is some great architecture there that is really worth preserving. Also, the lower section of Spring needs a major updates to really show off St Mary’s, the old courthouse, the Dal architecture building, and even the old library/St Mary’s Boy’s School area. So much potential there. I will never fully understand not updating Spring Garden from Barrington to South Park.

I’d also really like to see some development infill in the Old South Suburb in the four-ish empty lots in that area. The Governor and Alexander were a big win, but there are still some eyesores. Particularly beside the pizza shop on Barrington, and beside Emera and across from Emera. Even to repurpose those spaces as public gardens would be a win. I still stand by my position that Morris House would be better placed in the Old South Suburb and that it was clearly an asset to the area. As the oldest wooden structure in Halifax, it could have brought a lot of attention to the area if properly cared for and displayed. A big shame that it’s in the North End empty.

The Old South Suburb is really a mixed bag of great masonry buildings, well-kept wooden structures, and some derelict buildings. A big difference could be made by updating the pizza shop and the corner building on Bishop and Hollis.

What would you like to see done for these areas reach their full potential?

[OldDartmouthMark]

After thinking it over a little, I'd prefer less focus on conservation districts and more focus on generally preserving good examples of old architecture throughout the city through better heritage conservation regulations and assistance programs.

Although I genuinely do appreciate the establishment of conservation districts in Halifax, I also think that they seem to reenforce the idea that we only need to preserve heritage buildings within those districts, as if somehow those areas are the only important ones.

IMHO Halifax has generally been very bad at preserving much of its heritage stock, though, so in light of this, maybe conservation districts are the only practical way we can expect to have some preservation occur?

How would I want them improved? Through stronger incentives that help balance the business case to preserve and improve historic buildings vs tearing them down and building anew.

I'm still on the fence as to whether facadism constitutes 'heritage preservation', but I'd like to see less of it and more preservation of original structures where possible.

And yes, build on empty lots, but I expect that will happen all on its own, as an apartment building or condo is surely more lucrative than maintaining a surface parking lot, or an empty lot.

[Antigonish]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

After thinking it over a little, I'd prefer less focus on conservation districts and more focus on generally preserving good examples of old architecture throughout the city through better heritage conservation regulations and assistance programs.

Although I genuinely do appreciate the establishment of conservation districts in Halifax, I also think that they seem to reenforce the idea that we only need to preserve heritage buildings within those districts, as if somehow those areas are the only important ones.

I've thought about this a lot and have come to the conclusion that a couple entire neighborhoods on the peninsula should just be preserved with a couple minor exceptions along thoroughfares (i.e. some commercial/office and 'missing middle' type developments). In a way the idea is to just 'get it over with' and blanket cover large swathes of area that have beautiful old housing stock and nice rowhouses. Then everything else is pretty much fair game in terms of laxer height restrictions.

The flaws with planning in HRM is they spend years producing documents like the Centre Plan that isn't quite absolute in its purpose, then groups nitpick through it for loopholes or exceptions for minor variances and it still creates a bureaucratic mess it was meant to avoid. The point of planning is to plan thoroughly for years in advance, not waste time coming up with generalized ideas that can be interpreted in many directions. Find an absolute long-term plan and stick with it, even if the finances today are not available, it will be eventually down the road.

If you look at the department of highways they usually do not plan around highway expansions until capacity is pretty much reached, THEN they conduct studies, O-D surveys, etc. No, do it TODAY in anticipation for the need 10, 15, 20 years down the road. It's not going to eat a huge chunk out of next years budget, so why not plan ahead of time? Look at Highway 103 from Bridgewater to Halifax, they eventually twinned it out to Hubley but canned it further out possibly because the current population doesn't warrant capacity increases just yet but it will very soon as more and more people get priced out of the city; now people are moving as far away as Chester to Bridgewater rather than just SMB or Hammonds Plains 20 years ago. Fund the plans for it now rather than waiting until the corridor is completely bottlenecked.

[someone123]

I think fundamentally the bulk of the benefit occurs on a building-by-building basis along the lines of heritage registration, and the city needs to register a lot more buildings. The basic idea should be that in exchange for preserving the building the owner should get property tax breaks meant to cover the added maintenance beyond what would be required of a modern building. Relying on property owners to spend their own money to make the city look nicer may or may not work and if it doesn't work the heritage buildings that are gone are gone.

If the city helped restore a handful of buildings each year in the old South End, it would start to look quite good in only a few years. Some of this happens anyway but it has an uncoordinated "two steps forward, one step back" feel right now.

The city should also invest more into the public realm in these areas. Nicer street furniture, lights, burying power lines. Others have mentioned this.

What I don't like is the idea that a heritage "district" should impose heritage-y controls on non-heritage sites like parking lots. My impression is this is often NIMBYism masquerading as heritage preservation. I don't mind high-quality new builds in historic styles, and wish we had more of that, but I think that higher density and modern styles (e.g. tall glass towers) often complement that well and help pay for the higher quality. It's to be expected that inner districts in a growing city will become higher density over time and take on more commercial or mixed-use character.

Another thing I don't like is when developers argue that historic additions should be removed. Usually this is a convenient excuse for them to maximize development potential. This was suggested with the Dennis Building at one point. It is ridiculous. It's too bad the mansard roof was never added back onto Keith Hall, although they did an excellent job overall and that's not the same as wanting to saw off the top to add more modern space.

In my ideal "Old South Suburb" all of the historic buildings would be restored to their "peak" appearance, new builds would have high quality street facing components (e.g. 4 storey brick and stone facades), a few missing buildings would be reconstructed, and high density would be permitted on underused sites like parking lots. It wouldn't be a recreation of a Victorian neighbourhood, it would be an extension of downtown but with character elements preserved and enhanced.

[Keith P.]

Let's take the $10 million about to be wasted on the Macdonald Bridge bike flyover boondoggle and put it into this.