[Halifax] CLC Oxford Street (former RCMP) | ? m | 25 fl | Proposed

[someone123]

This is a mixed-use development at Oxford Street and Bayers Road on the former RCMP land.

Project site: https://fbm.ca/projects/oxford-street-properties/

[Keith P.]

Wow, that is a lot of units.

[someone123]

This reminds me a lot of Midtown North and in fact is a common plan these days in many cities for this kind of medium-sized development.

This is more of a site plan and massing diagram than a rendering of how the buildings look so it's too early to comment on the aesthetics.

It won't take many of these to bring up the population density on the peninsula. I wonder what the population is in 2019. People have been saying something like 70,000 for many years and I think that number is probably outdated. I doubt even the 2016 census numbers are very accurate.

[Jringe01]

Awesome

[teddifax]

I like it... I wonder if Halifax Transit is taking all these new developments into consideration and modifying their transit plans.... this and the 2 Windsor and Young projects (across the street from one another) will put a lot of population in a small area... will this be part of their plans with a Transit oriented corridor (BRT) with a station for this area...

[scryer]

That's a pretty awesome proposal.

[FuzzyWuz]

The Bayer Rd side should be terraced instead of just a big flat wall.

[Bone]

Demolition is well under way at this site, so glad to see some life in this area. I’ve lived around there for 15 years and it’s become one of the more depressing areas in town. Hopefully they approve the development at Young & Windsor. I wonder if they are ever going to do anything with the corner field lot at Bayers & Connaught. Who owns that land?

[teddifax]

Originally Posted by Bone

Demolition is well under way at this site, so glad to see some life in this area. I’ve lived around there for 15 years and it’s become one of the more depressing areas in town. Hopefully they approve the development at Young & Windsor. I wonder if they are ever going to do anything with the corner field lot at Bayers & Connaught. Who owns that land?

I think the city does and that may be earmarked for transit lanes...

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by teddifax

I think the city does and that may be earmarked for transit lanes...

Yes, they are in the midst of making traffic on the upper part of Bayers (east of Connaught) worse by reducing it to one vehicle travel lane outbound (maybe inbound too, not sure) and making the right lane Transit only (also supposedly for bikes of course but those will be few and far between).

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Yes, they are in the midst of making traffic on the upper part of Bayers (east of Connaught) worse by reducing it to one vehicle travel lane outbound (maybe inbound too, not sure) and making the right lane Transit only (also supposedly for bikes of course but those will be few and far between).

Isn't that area usually reduced to single lane anyway due to parked cars being allowed in the curb lane?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Isn't that area usually reduced to single lane anyway due to parked cars being allowed in the curb lane?

That is easily subject to change........

[Corker]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Isn't that area usually reduced to single lane anyway due to parked cars being allowed in the curb lane?

Parking is not allowed in the curb lanes during rush hour (or perhaps not during the weekday daytimes).

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Corker

Parking is not allowed in the curb lanes during rush hour (or perhaps not during the weekday daytimes).

Thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever taken that route during rush hour, but have been frustrated by the disappearing lane during non rush hours.

Keith has a valid point in that it will have a negative effect on rush hour traffic, then. I thought the governments in a democracy were supposed to make life better for the majority, not worse...

[Drybrain]

Someone on twitter pointed out that since this parcel is now zoned as a corridor under the Centre Plan, this whole thing is basically off the table now—way too tall/dense. (The Centre zoning a little east on Young would permit it, but this falls outside that area.)

Any insights there; is that mistaken?

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Someone on twitter pointed out that since this parcel is now zoned as a corridor under the Centre Plan, this whole thing is basically off the table now—way too tall/dense. (The Centre zoning a little east on Young would permit it, but this falls outside that area.)

Any insights there; is that mistaken?

Yes, the corridor zoning prevents the design as proposed. The site falls under the large-lot development agreement option, but Centre Plan as currently adopted doesn't give that much extra flexibility (especially in terms of height) with the large-lot development agreement. Maybe this will change through package B?

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Keith has a valid point in that it will have a negative effect on rush hour traffic, then. I thought the governments in a democracy were supposed to make life better for the majority, not worse...

Just went through looking at the designs. My impression is they should be a general improvement for the majority. Windsor to Connaught loses one outbound travel lane, but I've never felt like that was the bottleneck. The Connaught/Shopping Centre stretch of intersections is getting a full redesign which seems like it should improve things for everyone (buses, cars, and bikes) immensely. Plus west of Connaught is getting expanded from four to six lanes.

It seems like the clearest "losers" are the residents of the Westmount subdivision who are losing right-turn access to their neighbourhood from Bayers Road. I can understand why they'd be upset.

[Haliguy]

I went to the open house on this last week. I did express some concern in the reduction of an outbound lane for cars between Connaught and Windsor St. They said the improvment at the Bayers/ Connaught interesection and the Bayers/HSC interection will improve the flow of traffic mitgating the loss of the outbound lane between Windsor and Connaught.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Just went through looking at the designs. My impression is they should be a general improvement for the majority. Windsor to Connaught loses one outbound travel lane, but I've never felt like that was the bottleneck. The Connaught/Shopping Centre stretch of intersections is getting a full redesign which seems like it should improve things for everyone (buses, cars, and bikes) immensely. Plus west of Connaught is getting expanded from four to six lanes.

It seems like the clearest "losers" are the residents of the Westmount subdivision who are losing right-turn access to their neighbourhood from Bayers Road. I can understand why they'd be upset.

Thanks for the info. As mentioned, it's not a commuting route that I would use, so just going off others' (well, Keith's) comments that it will cause a bottleneck. I suspect that a lot of traffic to/from the 102 is handled by Connaught, thus lowering the significance of the upper part of Bayers Road for traffic volume.

Looking at it on Google Maps, I am reminded that the inbound lane to the northeast of Connaught is already only one lane... so my comment was much ado about nothing, actually.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Haliguy

I went to the open house on this last week. I did express some concern in the reduction of an outbound lane for cars between Connaught and Windsor St. They said the improvment at the Bayers/ Connaught interesection and the Bayers/HSC interection will improve the flow of traffic mitgating the loss of the outbound lane between Windsor and Connaught.

It probably won't, because the evening rush-hour bottleneck is created by the signals at Bayers/Connaught with all the left-turning Connaught traffic onto Bayers, and then the signals at Bayers/Romans. However, perhaps that can be mitigated somewhat with the extra lanes west of Connaught with no lumbering/stopping buses clogging up the works. I have zero confidence since anything HRM does lately regarding traffic seems designed to only make it worse.