Fairview Area Development & Discussion

[Dmajackson]

Map of the Fairview Area from My Developments Map



Neighourhoods Included In District:

• Fairview
  Bayview
  Mount Royale
  Dutch Village (part of)
  Main Avenue

Related Threads:

Under Construction

Series Information:

The "districts" and "areas" series is based upon my Developments Map (see above for link). It is designed to allow discussion on the district in general and provide a place for smaller developments in the area to have a place to be discussed. Larger projects will have a seperate thread that will be linked to this post in the space above.

This thread is the second of the series and will focus on the district commonly referred to as Fairview (Halifax-Fairview).This area lies within the area surrounded by Joseph Howe Drive (minus a portion), Bicentennial Drive (Highway 102), Mainland Commons, Glenforest Drive, Lacewood Drive, and the Bedford Basin.

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To open up the discussion I thought I'd ask a hypothetical question ...

If car dealerships were to ever make a bad financial decision (tough to believe,eh?) and had to shut down the car dealerships around 44 Bedford Highway, how would you like to see the lands redeveloped?

Things to keep in mind; its in a medium-high density area, Bayview Condos is consolidating the entrances into a single stop-light, its in a quarry (low land), adjacent to the container Terminal (views of water & industry), and unless more property is included only accessible via the Bedford Highway.

[Dmajackson]

Just to clarify something in addition to the resons stated above for starting these threads I feel having a thread per district is better then a general thread for most projects outside of the urban core. The Suburban thread currently covers and area and population comparable to Prince Edward Island and is highly uneffective in my mind. Having a thread where we can discuss not only developments in a defined area but also have "theoretical" discussions on land use is much more effective in my mind.

[worldlyhaligonian]

High density with access out the other side! Meaning toward fairview (up the hill). There could be one turn halfway to ease the slope.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sourc...330.6,,0,11.74

[halifaxboyns]

Having lived in Fairview (in the red area); there is a lot of opportunity to get some additional density through small increases in localized development. Most of Fairview was down zoned to R-1 back when it was annexed into Halifax (for what reason I have no idea?) - but a lot of the existing houses are duplexes (over/under); with some limited semi's dashed in between the singles.

If the whole low density area was upzoned to R-2 (allowing semi's) and rules were created to allow lots to be as little as 25' wide; you could get a lot more new homes in the area (although they would be narrow and long, versus wide and short). This may be attainable in having one side yard reduced; or even at 0'; with a maintenance free wall at the 0 foot pl.

Most of the opportunities to build high density will be along Dutch Village Road, more than likely (or possibly in small places along Willet).

There may also be opportunities (now that I think of it) where a number of single R-1 lots could be combined and redone as townhouses too; thus further increasing density.

This area is well serviced for schools (Burton Ettinger, Fairview Heights and Fairview Heights annex as the Elementary schools and Fairview Junior High). Plus there are ball fields, but only three playgrounds.

If the density of the 'low density' area increases; there may also be a need to increase the transit service (as I doubt the 4 and 2; with rush hour service from the 21, 31 and 33 would cut it). The original 2 (way back when I was a kid) went up from Mumford to Bayers Road; up Melrose; along willet and around the Clayton Park shopping Centre back to Mumford. There may be a need to add another route on that side; even if for rush hour.

Remember, density doesn't always have to be a tower; but can be simple things like splitting up 50' lots into 2; or combining many 40' lots and creating a townhouse development.

I like Worldly's idea of vimy avenue being more high density; but don't take down the ice rink. Still not enough facilities; that should be retained. Main avenue at the bottom should also densify.

[Northend Guy]

Just out of curiousity, does anyone know if there are any plans at all for the old Halifax West Site? Right now it just seems to be a place for dogs to make a deposit... I found the thread for this, but there is nothing going on with it, so just curious...

[sdm]

Originally Posted by Northend Guy

Just out of curiousity, does anyone know if there are any plans at all for the old Halifax West Site? Right now it just seems to be a place for dogs to make a deposit... I found the thread for this, but there is nothing going on with it, so just curious...

Its another site of united gulf, and the plans are for residential and office.

[Dmajackson]

I wasn't expecting this but the site I brought up hypothetically is now up for redevelopment so heres to hoping something good comes out of that area.

[Northend Guy]

I saw that article in the Herald today saying that the Carroll dealership is folding, after just reading thru this thread yesterday, I was thinking your 'hypothetical' proposition was a little on the uncanny side...

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by Northend Guy

I saw that article in the Herald today saying that the Carroll dealership is folding, after just reading thru this thread yesterday, I was thinking your 'hypothetical' proposition was a little on the uncanny side...

This could be more good news for helping to bring life back to this area. I wonder if the consolidation of the GM dealerships will result in O'Regan's on Robie will need to find a new location to be bigger and better? I am going to cross my fingers that this news brings two locations that could be development sites

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by halifaxboyns

This could be more good news for helping to bring life back to this area. I wonder if the consolidation of the GM dealerships will result in O'Regan's on Robie will need to find a new location to be bigger and better? I am going to cross my fingers that this news brings two locations that could be development sites

The news story indicated that O'Regans said they would be staying on Robie St. Personally I don't think this makes sense. That site is already overcrowded and adding more inventory will only make it worse. Meanwhile up on Kempt Rd they own 3 parcels that are adjacent to each other, although the BMW dealer site takes a chunk out of the middle of it. Still though, I have to think that Kempt Rd makes far more sense even if they have to invest in a new/expanded building there.

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

The news story indicated that O'Regans said they would be staying on Robie St. Personally I don't think this makes sense. That site is already overcrowded and adding more inventory will only make it worse. Meanwhile up on Kempt Rd they own 3 parcels that are adjacent to each other, although the BMW dealer site takes a chunk out of the middle of it. Still though, I have to think that Kempt Rd makes far more sense even if they have to invest in a new/expanded building there.

I think that most of the car dealerships should be on Kempt road. This is a great example of how organic planning has occured, without any real push by planners. This would be a great example of an auto-oriented commercial corridor and I would highly encourage them to move their lot to Kempt Road if it will work.

I'd like to add another comment about Fairview - with the housing stock reaching about 60 years old; it might also be workable to have some localized density increases for townhousing by combining a number of lots together and rebuilding.

[fairviewdude]

I am living next to one of those type of densifications you mention. A 60+ yo house on a double lot was torn down and 2 duplexes are being constructed-very slowly. All I see is a monstrousity looming over the street, with all three levels above ground.

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by fairviewdude

I am living next to one of those type of densifications you mention. A 60+ yo house on a double lot was torn down and 2 duplexes are being constructed-very slowly. All I see is a monstrousity looming over the street, with all three levels above ground.

That's one of the problems though and rightly pointed out.

In Calgary, as the new land use bylaw was being developed - the same issue came up. You had communities where the typical house was a bungalow and new houses being proposed were going up to 3 stories (up to the maximum 10m allowable height) and then it would be a battle of policy with planners and the appeal board to see who would win out. It was very up in the air.

So the planning dept came up with this idea that the context of the surrounding homes should dictate how tall your house could be and how far forward you could come (because with new development; they wanted to encourage houses to creep forward - so that backyards could be bigger). So if you had two bungalows on either side; you typically came out on the low end of the height range and then if you had a mix, you came out in the middle.

This was called the 'contextual building height average' which was basically:
height of Building A + height of building B/2 + 1.5 (to allow an increase) = your height.
(building a and b - being the neighbouring buildings).

So if the two buildings were both 5m tall, you ended up with a max height of 7.5m. But since 7.5 was still a bit shore; the height range was set with a base number. So if you ended up with 7.5 through the formula, your maximum automatically because 8.6m (since that is the base height).

So the rule read like this:
The maximum height of a single detached dwelling is:
(a) 8.6m; or
(b) the contextual building height average to a maximum of 10.0m.

So no matter what - you were guarenteed 8.6m, but depending on context you could go up to 10m. Sounds pretty simplistic - but it has turned out to be quite difficult to administrate. In order to be accurate with the numbers, a surveyor must shoot the geodetic elevation of each neighbouring home from grade - so we can find out the height. That's hugely expensive. With a zoning system; the box is pre-set so when you end up in an older home - these buildings seem to tower over them. One thing that could be done is the 3rd levels could be forced to be set in. This breaks up the massing of the wall.