Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
From a purely skyline perspective, I actually find the Halifax skyline less attractive now with the additional density of the last decade because it's become such a table top with little in terms of peaks or focal points. I'm grateful for the increased density from a planning perspective of course since it's brought more people and activity downtown and covered some unsightly vacant or underutilized lots, but the skyline has gone from being sort of cool and interesting for a city its size to being... bland.
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I think Halifax's skyline has gotten better and there are lots of nice new buildings in the pipeline. It's worth mentioning though that while downtown Halifax is pretty heavily planned, there's been no attempt to make the skyline appealing and in many cases the rules imposed do the opposite. The viewplanes are frustum shaped (bulky boxes) and encourage intensification in massive blobs as long as everything is below a certain height.
There's no allowance at all for the odd landmark highrise, and there's no planning distinction between height due to usable space and ornamentation, so it costs a lot to build something like a spire. All of the view rules are about managing views of natural or historic features from the city.
We might actually see more diversity of styles in outer urban and suburban areas. The average quality will be higher in the urban core but it will be a lot of 20 storey stuff that just adds to the tabletop effect.
What the rules (and the city's older, smaller block and street pattern) has been good for is keeping the developments relatively slender and the street level frontages varied and well scaled.