Halifax's booming population puts a squeeze on performance venues

[Keith P.]

Story here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...ifax-1.7150067


This is something that has been discussed for a long time given that the Cohn is too small and poorly situated for many events, and the Metro Centre too big and less than ideal for many acts. Another opportunity missed by HRM in spending their treasure trove of tax dollars, instead preferring to hire more bureaucrats and to build bike lanes and 4-pad hockey rinks instead.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

I'm inclined to think that the Forum/post office site on Almon St. is better suited to be a stadium/performance centre location than it is housing development. Perhaps a central parkade with a stadium facing Robie and a performance centre facing Windsor?

[HarbingerDe]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

I'm inclined to think that the Forum/post office site on Almon St. is better suited to be a stadium/performance centre location than it is housing development. Perhaps a central parkade with a stadium facing Robie and a performance centre facing Windsor?

Why have 5,000+ new housing units when you could have a stadium and a parkade!!??

[Nouvellecosse]

Well, we need both housing as well as the services, infrastructure, and amenities to support the population. Housing is much easier to shoe-horn into smaller plots of land here and there while large venues require bigger expanses which tend to be less common, particularly in central areas. That said, a lot of large venues can be made as mixed use developments, with things like housing, retail, offices, or hotel integrated with them.

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Well, we need both housing as well as the services, infrastructure, and amenities to support the population. Housing is much easier to shoe-horn into smaller plots of land here and there while large venues require bigger expanses which tend to be less common, particularly in central areas. That said, a lot of large venues can be made as mixed use developments, with things like housing, retail, offices, or hotel integrated with them.

I'm not sure our local developers have the experience with mixed use developments to pull off stadium-slash-theatre-slash-performance-venue-slash-parking-slash-multi-unit-residential.

[TheCuriousMind]

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

I'm not sure our local developers have the experience with mixed use developments to pull off stadium-slash-theatre-slash-performance-venue-slash-parking-slash-multi-unit-residential.

Could hire the guys that built up the bell centre area in Montreal ... one of the world's premiere hockey stadiums surrounded by 50 storey condo towers on what used to be an urban railyard / train station. It can be done, but in Halifax, it won't be, probably just more 4 storey buildings and surface parking lots and anti-urban nimbys cheering as the city swirls the drain

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by HarbingerDe

Why have 5,000+ new housing units when you could have a stadium and a parkade!!??

Because building a city without adequate leisure facilities makes it less enjoyable to live there?

Why not increase FAR for sites yet to be built so that we have land available to build a city with facilities for the people to use and enjoy? Stuffing housing on every square metre isn't necessarily the best outcome.

Then, perhaps if we weren't bringing in new population as quickly as possible, builders could catch up and increase housing supply so that we could ease out of the housing crisis and maybe even pricing could drop due to less demand and more supply... but that's another story.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Because building a city without adequate leisure facilities makes it less enjoyable to live there?

Why not increase FAR for sites yet to be built so that we have land available to build a city with facilities for the people to use and enjoy? Stuffing housing on every square metre isn't necessarily the best outcome.

Then, perhaps if we weren't bringing in new population as quickly as possible, builders could catch up and increase housing supply so that we could ease out of the housing crisis and maybe even pricing could drop due to less demand and more supply... but that's another story.

I can understand why good people are passionate about the housing crisis we are experiencing as it's front and centre pretty much everyday right now. To your first point, I'm completely onside in that we should not fail to plan for the future while working on a resolution to a current (and temporary) problem. A site such as the Forum/post office is the last of its kind in what is pretty much the smack dab centre of the peninsula.

It's your second point I can't yet reconcile in my mind. As a retired boomer who still occupies a home should I be out there building a home for the worker that replaces me? Aren't we at a point where perhaps most (or certainly a large share of) homes are occupied by non working boomers and yet our previous work still exists and requires employees who have to live somewhere...but not my home? And like there was once a boom in births won't there soon be a boom in deaths leaving many homes empty? I have wondered if the media is shying away from stories on a boom of deaths not wanting to offend or scare-off the (old) readers/customers they have remaining? Anyway, this looks to be a major issue in a not too far off federal election.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by TheCuriousMind

It can be done, but in Halifax, it won't be, probably just more 4 storey buildings and surface parking lots and anti-urban nimbys cheering as the city swirls the drain

Where does this perception of the city come from? We've got more highrises under construction than just about any city below 1 milllion population in the country, with the exception of places like Mississauga and Richmond, which are suburban satellites within larger metros. Building projects are leaps and bounds more ambitious in terms of design and scale than they were in the recent past, and the zoning changes proposed by the city to achive the Housing Accelerator Fund goals are honestly among the most substantial ones proposed by any city in the country. And the handful of same-old vocal NIMBYs have essentially no political influence and achieve basically nothing. Things aren't perfect but it's also not 1995 anymore.

[GTG_78]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

[/B]
It's your second point I can't yet reconcile in my mind. As a retired boomer who still occupies a home should I be out there building a home for the worker that replaces me? Aren't we at a point where perhaps most (or certainly a large share of) homes are occupied by non working boomers and yet our previous work still exists and requires employees who have to live somewhere...but not my home? And like there was once a boom in births won't there soon be a boom in deaths leaving many homes empty? I have wondered if the media is shying away from stories on a boom of deaths not wanting to offend or scare-off the (old) readers/customers they have remaining? Anyway, this looks to be a major issue in a not too far off federal election.

One of the underlying causes of the current housing crisis is decades of bad policy. But the bigger cause by far is the number of new immigrants, permanent residents, and non-permanent residents that require housing. Canada has experienced one of the fastest population increases in the world. Not the Western world - the world. We simply do not have the capacity to build our way out of this at the current rate.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Originally Posted by GTG_78

One of the underlying causes of the current housing crisis is decades of bad policy. But the bigger cause by far is the number of new immigrants, permanent residents, and non-permanent residents that require housing. Canada has experienced one of the fastest population increases in the world. Not the Western world - the world. We simply do not have the capacity to build our way out of this at the current rate.

Ok, so the counter to this is to wait for boomers to die-off to free up housing for new immigrants and in the meantime leave the jobs vacated by the retiring boomers unfilled? The lack of a labour force will not have any negative repercussions? ...just trying to get all the options on the table here so that they may be properly understood.

[toones]

I think many of the old movie theatres were a lost opportunity as well.

[GTG_78]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

Ok, so the counter to this is to wait for boomers to die-off to free up housing for new immigrants and in the meantime leave the jobs vacated by the retiring boomers unfilled? The lack of a labour force will not have any negative repercussions? ...just trying to get all the options on the table here so that they may be properly understood.

We need to keep building as much as possible. But the housing crisis will continue unless we significantly scale back immigration and especially NPRs, TFWs, and international students.

As an aside, we do not have a general labour shortage. That is a myth propagated by government and large businesses to keep service wages depressed.

We have a skilled worker shortage, which could have been readily addressed. Instead, the Federal government opened the floodgates and allowed private businesses to abuse or outright defraud the TFW and IMP programs.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by TheCuriousMind

Could hire the guys that built up the bell centre area in Montreal ... one of the world's premiere hockey stadiums surrounded by 50 storey condo towers on what used to be an urban railyard / train station. It can be done, but in Halifax, it won't be, probably just more 4 storey buildings and surface parking lots and anti-urban nimbys cheering as the city swirls the drain

As an ex-Haligonian, I visit once in awhile to re-asses a possible move back home. The city is immeasurably nicer and more cosmopolitan than it was before but the deal breaker continues to be how auto-centric Halifax remains. That a place like Dartmouth Crossing was allowed to be built just left me shaking my head.

I remember it taking 50 minutes to get to Dalhousie from Clayton Park on a weekday morning. It's only gotten worse since then. Halifax needs LRT and it really needs to go in a tunnel like Toronto's Eglinton Crosstown. Halifax is a much smaller metro and it would be massively expensive but congestion won't get fixed without it. If 500,000 person metros in Europe can do this, so can Halifax.

The stadium? Well yes, the 42 year wait (and counting) for a CFL team is a reminder of why I left in the first place. Life's too short to wait around decades for things to happen. I'm not saying no CFL was what decided things, but it was one of many things. At some point, you just give up. I'll stick to summer vacations to Halifax.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by GTG_78

We need to keep building as much as possible. But the housing crisis will continue unless we significantly scale back immigration and especially NPRs, TFWs, and international students.

Well, that will happen at least temporarily, if the government follows through with this recently announced plan to scale back NPRs to 5% of the population by 2027. Doesn't sound like that big a deal, but to get there that quickly we'll basically need to stop taking in NPRs for a couple of years, which will cause population growth to crater before going back up in '27/'28 (to levels somewhat below today's, though still high).

The government hasn't announced by what means there will be such a dramatic reduction, however, so it will be interesting to watch.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by isaidso

As an ex-Haligonian, I visit once in awhile to re-asses a possible move back home. The city is immeasurably nicer and more cosmopolitan than it was before but the deal breaker continues to be how auto-centric Halifax remains. That a place like Dartmouth Crossing was allowed to be built just left me shaking my head.

I remember it taking 50 minutes to get to Dalhousie from Clayton Park on a weekday morning. It's only gotten worse since then. Halifax needs LRT and it really needs to go in a tunnel like Toronto's Eglinton Crosstown. Halifax is a much smaller metro and it would be massively expensive but congestion won't get fixed without it. If 500,000 people metros in Europe can do this, so can Halifax.

The stadium? Well yes, the 42 year wait (and counting) for a CFL team is a reminder of why I left in the first place. Life's too short to wait around decades for things to happen. I'm not saying no CFL was what decided things, but it was one of many things. At some point, you just give up. I'll stick to summer vacations to Halifax.

Great points. Halifax has been horrific on developing new and better transit options. Curiously, even on progressive-thinking forums like this one, even when they do bring about a new transit option (the new high-speed ferry system), it's criticized as not being good enough... so there's obviously still a lot of small town mentality here.

The struggle to get a stadium is another point. People argue that it costs too much money, or that potential sites would be better suited for housing, and that sites like Dartmouth Crossing aren't urban enough and would also be a mistake. It can be confusing to wade through, but all we need to know is that no progress happens in the meantime.

All that being said, it's important for a person to understand what is important to their own lives, and it sounds like you've made the right decision to move away and stay away. I often wonder why some of the folks who constantly complain about Halifax continue to live here, actually. Meanwhile our population continues to increase and housing continues to become more expensive and less available. For me, I've visited many cities, and evaluated their positives and negatives... and decided that Halifax is still the place where I want to live over the others... for now, at least.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Well, that will happen at least temporarily, if the government follows through with this recently announced plan to scale back NPRs to 5% of the population by 2027. Doesn't sound like that big a deal, but to get there that quickly we'll basically need to stop taking in NPRs for a couple of years, which will cause population growth to crater before going back up in '27/'28 (to levels somewhat below today's, though still high).

The government hasn't announced by what means there will be such a dramatic reduction, however, so it will be interesting to watch.

I'm not sure how to qualify all that, TBH. They say they are going to do this or that, but it was them who got us into this mess in the first place. Did they not understand the implications of vast increases in population happening in a short period of time?

From the article you linked to:

In December, Statistics Canada said the country's population grew by more than 430,000 during the third quarter of 2023, marking the fastest pace of population growth in any quarter since 1957.

That rise was fuelled by international migration, including about 313,000 non-permanent residents who came to the country from July to September.

This is just as recent as last fall, many years after it had already been known that housing costs were making housing unattainable for our younger citizens, and those who hadn't been fortunate enough to have bought into the housing market before it went crazy. Now, even rent costs have gone through the roof... in Halifax, of all places, where it was long known as a relatively affordable place to live.

Did they not understand the implications of their actions? I realize that running a country is not a simple situation, but it boggles the mind how they managed to screw it up so horribly, really. I mean, we elect these people with the faith that they have expertise and the ability to get things done so that the country at least can maintain the standard of living that we've come to expect, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

[Dartguard]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I'm not sure how to qualify all that, TBH. They say they are going to do this or that, but it was them who got us into this mess in the first place. Did they not understand the implications of vast increases in population happening in a short period of time?

From the article you linked to:


This is just as recent as last fall, many years after it had already been known that housing costs were making housing unattainable for our younger citizens, and those who hadn't been fortunate enough to have bought into the housing market before it went crazy. Now, even rent costs have gone through the roof... in Halifax, of all places, where it was long known as a relatively affordable place to live.

Did they not understand the implications of their actions? I realize that running a country is not a simple situation, but it boggles the mind how they managed to screw it up so horribly, really. I mean, we elect these people with the faith that they have expertise and the ability to get things done so that the country at least can maintain the standard of living that we've come to expect, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

I have a friend that works for Immigration Canada here in the Halifax area.
She was part of a National conference Call in 2021 when the minister announced that they were opening up the taps. The bureaucrats on the line started losing it asking very relevant questions, like where are we going to house, employ, feed or provide health care. All questions were ignored.
"we're doing it"

I have heard from other sources that the Liberals kept opening the taps to "prove " that the Conservatives were just Canadian MCGA types. Except the Conservatives did not play the game . ZERO negative commentary about Immigration from PP. So the Libs opened the tap even more. Again no reaction. Its turned into a Liberal blowback problem that is now costing a generation of Canadians far fewer options. I hope the Fed Liberals get reduced to Wynnes van full next October.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by Dartguard

I have a friend that works for Immigration Canada here in the Halifax area.
She was part of a National conference Call in 2021 when the minister announced that they were opening up the taps. The bureaucrats on the line started losing it asking very relevant questions, like where are we going to house, employ, feed or provide health care. All questions were ignored.
"we're doing it"

I have heard from other sources that the Liberals kept opening the taps to "prove " that the Conservatives were just Canadian MCGA types. Except the Conservatives did not play the game . ZERO negative commentary about Immigration from PP. So the Libs opened the tap even more. Again no reaction. Its turned into a Liberal blowback problem that is now costing a generation of Canadians far fewer options. I hope the Fed Liberals get reduced to Wynnes van full next October.

I hope not! PP is going to be bad news.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Haliguy

I hope not! PP is going to be bad news.

PP is interested in becoming PM, that's about it. He has nothing to offer but stoking Trudeau exhaustion, and on housing, his big pet issue, he talks a good game but his actual platform is nonsensical. That's to say nothing of the fact that it's actual been David Eby in BC and Sean Fraser federally who are pursuing policy that is likely to actually get housing built. He attacks them as housing gatekeepers, but then has nothing to say about Rob "No Fourplexes" Ford.

Trudeau has overstayed his time in office, but electing Poilievre would be a very unfortunate swing in the other direction.