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  #21  
Old Posted May 14, 2011, 11:19 PM
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Anybody know what the story is for the apartment buildings that were to go on those two sites? Are they going to be built soon?

Still nothing for Gottingen Terrace I guess?
It is that Ross Cantwell led mixed low income apartment project.

http://www.thecoast.ca/RealityBites/...ttingen-street

No development agreement, and Ross and the gang want 8-12 stories no setback, and the merchants association and neighbours are not hot on that.

I've got to see some plans before I judge.
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  #22  
Old Posted May 20, 2011, 12:02 AM
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Gottingen Street changing in big ways
Business Improvement District is formed, dental clinic in the works, efforts to open grocery store and bank.
POSTED BY TIM BOUSQUET ON TUE, MAY 17, 2011 AT 5:47 PM // THE COAST


There's a new energy on Gottingen Street, and that energy is playing out in all sorts of interesting and positive ways. There is big news this week for the street: A north end business improvement district is being formed. And there is big almost news for the street: a full dental clinic has been outfitted, and organizers are just trying to figure out how to get it up and running. And there's also important, long term trends on the street: There's a real possibility that Gottingen will soon see both a grocery store and a bank office, and the street's biggest and longest standing eyesore is about to come down.

Business Improvement District
North end Halifax businesses are about to get a big boost. Property owners have agreed to form a business improvement district incorporating Gottingen and Agricola Streets and the Hydrostone area. This means properties will be assessed an additional property tax, with the proceeds going to fund a business development and street improvements.

Typically, BIDs do things like put out collective advertising and buy landscaping. The idea is that the BID improves the business climate, and therefore increases property values, more than cancelling out the increased tax.

The north end BID is HRM’s eighth. Other BIDs have been formed for downtown Halifax, Spring Garden Road, Quinpool Road, Herring Cove Road, Sackville Road, downtown Dartmouth and Main Street in Dartmouth.

Two previous attempts to form a north end BID have failed, with property owners voting about two-thirds against the idea. But the third time was the charm: with 126 votes in, 83 property owners, or 66 percent, voted for the BID. The difference this time was that the proposal was put forward by Bernard Smith, the former director of the Spring Garden Area Merchants Association. Smith rented an office on Gottingen Street on his own dime, and has been pounding the pavement for three months, meeting with property owners and discussing his ideas, which include hosting an arts walk and doing promotions geared towards the many antique stores, among others.

The BID proposal calls for an additional tax of 18 cents per $100 of commercial assessment, with no individual property being charged less than $50 or more than $2,500. Halifax council still has to put its stamp of approval on the BID, and is expected to vote on it in June. The tax receipts for the BID won’t come in until next year, but Smith is going to ask council to loan the BID first-year operating costs so he can get up and running immediately. Failing a city loan, he says he’ll seek a bank loan.

Dental Clinic
A few months ago, the space-squeezed North End Community Health Clinic at 2165 Gottingen Street expanded its footprint considerably by renting out the former Viva's Restaurant space at 2103 and 2101 Gottingen Street. The intent was simply to get some "breathing space" for large group programming and to have a commercial kitchen for the Hope Blooms initiative, in which neighbourhood kids use crops from the local community garden to make salad dressings that are sold at the farmers' market, explains executive director Jane Moloney.

With the new space yet another opportunity presented itself: a dental clinic. With a one-time grant from the provincial department of Health and Wellness, NECHC was able to install the plumbing and walls for a dental clinic, but would have found it "prohibitively expensive" to proceed further, says Moloney. But a company called Henry Schein donated "the chairs, the stools, the Xrays, the mechical pumps, the sterilization and persuaded a dentist they’re doing renovations for to donate the old cabinets." Within a couple of months the space will be fully fitted as a dental clinic.

There is still the issue of how to get the dental clinic up and running, says Moloney, but Chris Lee, a dentist who runs the emergency dental program at Dalhousie Medical School, has organized 12 private practice dentists who are interested in donating their time at the clinic.

Moloney says she’s working through the details of getting the dentists and dental assistants organized, figuring out operating expenses and coming up with a proper business case to make the dental clinic a reality.

Grocery store
The North End Community Health Clinic is also one of the groups behind a drive to bring a Coop grocery store to Gottingen Street, although Moloney is quick to credit Norman Greenberg with initiating the effort. Greenberg is a psychologist with the Social Enterprise Network, a group that brings people with developmental disabilities into the workplace. That work has given him an insight into alternative business models, explains Moloney. Greenberg was not available for an interview Tuesday.

The idea of a Coop store has taken on momentum, with five community meetings held in recent weeks, says Robert Lemoine, a vice-president of Coop Atlantic, the cooperative that connects the Coop grocery stores. A Gottingen Street store would be owned by a local cooperative board, explains Lemoine, but Coop Atlantic would provide advice, a management template and would deliver the vegetables, meat and groceries to the store.

Moloney spells out the specifics: according to the 2006 census , there are 1,300 households in the couple of blocks either side of Gottingen from Cogswell to North Streets. Coop Atlantic brought projections showing that a 10,000 square foot grocery store could turn over $5 million worth of product annually with 2,100 members, so long as half of them bought all their groceries at the store.

Moloney says those numbers aren't as bad as they look at first glance because the neighbourhood population has boomed with all the new residential development since 2006, and will grow still more when the Housing Trust affordable housing buildings are constructed. Moreover, there are a variety of social service agencies and other institutions in the area that would purchase through a Coop store, and as Gottingen Street is a thoroughfare to the Macdonald Bridge, some number of people who live out-of-area could be expected to shop there.

"For this to be a vibrant community, it needs to have a whole bunch of different services and supports that people need," says Moloney. "Everybody needs to buy food. At the moment, Sobeys is the nearest grocery store, then there’s two Superstores. People in this area are on low incomes, and when they have to take $10 out of their grocery budget for the taxi ride home that’s quite a significant bite. And there’s a feeling that a food coop would also present a bunch of other opportunities, including employment, the fact that the profits may stay in the community, that it’s community owned, that we can be the ones that set the policies and bylaws. And there’s no sense that Sobeys’ profits or Superstore’s profits come back into this community."

Moloney says a cooperative could write into its bylaws that only people who live in the neighbourhood could be employed in the store, a rule which would help in the kind of career development work that Michelle Strum, owner of Alter Ego Cafe and Backpackers Hostel, has incorporated into her businesses.

Strum is also involved in the Coop effort. She says it could become a reality within a couple of years.

Credit Union
Another badly needed service on the street is a bank. Bernard Smith in particular has been pushing that idea, and has even found a space for it---the Forbes Restoration building at 2172 Gottingen, which once used to house a bank, and still has the vault. Forbes also owns the building next door so could simply shift its operation, says Smith.

In fact, two years ago INova Credit Union was "very much focused" on moving its operation from Almon Street to Gottingen Street, says Willy Robinson, general manager. But there wasn't then a space on Gottingen that met its needs, and the credit union instead jumped at the opportunity to move into the former CNIB building at Almon and Windsor Streets. That move is taking all of the organization's energy at the moment, says Robinson.

Still, the move to Gottingen "will probably happen one of these days," she says. "Once we get a really good anchor credit union going [on Almon Street], we can look at Gottingen again. Also, there isn't any reason people on Gottingen Street can't open up their own credit union under the auspices of INova. They could hire their own people, get their own budgets going and use all of our resources and make it happen that way."

Just like Coop Atlantic could provide its expertise, its management template and its advice, and provide product to the door of a new Gottingen Street cooperative grocery store owned by locals, Robinson says that INova could provide its expertise, its management template, its advice and provide the capital needed to run a Gottigen Street cooperative credit union.

"If you have everything taken care of for you, then it's no different than anyone else going and getting a job in a bank," says Robinson. "If we ever do go to Gottingen Street, I'd like to see it run by people who live in the area, as much as possible.

"It could look like anything you want it to look like," continues Robinson. "It could look like just an office with a cash machine and a couple of people who are advisors.

"It needs to happen," she says.

A new air
But whether the Gottingen Street area is open to the challenges of organizing its own cooperative grocery and credit union organizations is an open question. Strum, at Backpackers, thinks that it is. So does Moloney, at the North End Community Health Clinic.

"We had over 20 people sign up not just as interested in the Coop, but as saying they would be actively involved in the effort," says Moloney. "Residents want to see this happen."

And with the new organizational strength and expertise that Bernard Smith brings to the Business Improvement District, people on the street seem to have a more positive attitude generally.

And then there are changes on the ground. The former Diamonds Bar building was torn down last month, and the construction fencing was last week moved down the street to the former Mitchell's Environmental Treasures building, the biggest and ugliest eyesore, not to mention source of rats, on the street. Demolition is underway---workers are dismantling parts of the interior of the building today, and passersby should start seeing the exterior coming down any day now.

The physical removal of MET will be transformative, bringing about a huge change in mental outlook of the street. But the other changes afoot on Gottingen may be even bigger.
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  #23  
Old Posted May 20, 2011, 7:05 PM
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A 10,000 sf Co-op would be an attraction. Their house brands are excellent and they have a focus on local suppliers, and people would travel for that. AND, the Co-op brand salsa is the best. For real.
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  #24  
Old Posted May 20, 2011, 7:25 PM
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The Good Food Emporium will be moving to Windsor Street. The building, I find, has declined in the last few years since the new operators took over. The building had better upkeep before that.
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  #25  
Old Posted May 30, 2011, 7:35 PM
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Originally Posted by planarchy View Post
Moloney spells out the specifics: according to the 2006 census , there are 1,300 households in the couple of blocks either side of Gottingen from Cogswell to North Streets. Coop Atlantic brought projections showing that a 10,000 square foot grocery store could turn over $5 million worth of product annually with 2,100 members, so long as half of them bought all their groceries at the store.
I wish this sort of analysis would get more attention. Few people seem to make the connection between densities, economic vitality, and the overall well-being of neighbourhoods.

Back in the 1960s Gottingen was still a poor area but it was in better shape because it still had enough people. More recently the area has fallen apart because it has low densities and low incomes that cannot sustain local businesses. Many of the remaining residents cannot afford a car and cannot afford to move so they are trapped in an area with limited employment and services. If there were more residents, wealthy or not, there would be more opportunities for the current inhabitants. Their standard of living would likely improve significantly.

Concerns about gentrification and displacement are somewhat theoretical at this point. In any case there are many potential solutions to this perceived issue that are much better than stifling new development.

Unfortunately according to the 2006 census the tract centred around Gottingen from Cornwallis to North lost people (4,699 from 4,943), as did the tract north of North. It seems safe to say that this has reversed but it's important to look at hard data. Perceptions are often totally wrong. People see some construction sites on their way to work and think the city is booming. Meanwhile, they ignore the other 98% of the city that is slowly declining.

Last edited by someone123; May 30, 2011 at 7:55 PM.
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  #26  
Old Posted May 31, 2011, 5:06 AM
worldlyhaligonian worldlyhaligonian is offline
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Well, I mean I think its starting to rebound... the numbers have to be going up in this area even slightly now with all the new residential u/c and approved.

The Hydrostone seems to be adding more people.
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  #27  
Old Posted Jun 30, 2011, 5:27 PM
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http://www.pbase.com/thomaxx/gottingen
some more changes on Gottingen since these were taken
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  #28  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2011, 6:05 PM
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Google Earth has a very interesting feature: historical satellite photography. You can pick an old date and see what things looked like back then. For Halifax, the imagery goes back to 2003.

Hey Someone123. Could you contact Dianne at teh CBC about this, she is interested in possibly doing a story about this thread - 902.420.4431

Please let me know if you get this today (Tuesday)
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  #29  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2011, 8:15 AM
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Recently there was a Tim Bousquet editorial in The Coast about St. Pat's Alexandra and Gottingen: http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/upfro...ategory=957825

I don't want to get into the Africville stuff but there's an interesting part about the redevelopment of Diamonds and Mitchell's Enviro Depot:

Quote:
Meanwhile, the organization that is trying to build actual affordable housing for working poor people in the neighbourhood is fighting tooth and nail against a city bureaucracy that won't budge from outdated planning policies.

Last year, the Nova Scotia Housing Trust bought the dilapidated former Diamonds bar and Mitchell's Environmental Treasures buildings on Gottingen Street and tore them down in preparation for building two apartment buildings. Each will have about 100 units, half at market rates, half with subsidized rents affordable to people working low-wage jobs.

Housing Trust president Ross Cantwell tells me that he's faced nothing but frustration for 14 months from city hall, which insists on applying planning rules cobbled together in the 1990s and which contradict the regional plan adopted in 2006. City staff wanted the trust to wait three years for new plans to be adopted, but Cantwell is hopeful he can start construction ---in the summer of 2013, maybe.

For Cantwell, true affordable housing in the north end is an economic development issue. The low-wage service workers necessary for a thriving downtown need to live close to work, otherwise taxpayers will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for increased transit and bigger roads necessary for the workers to commute, and businesses will have to pay higher wages to compensate for increased commuting costs and time.
I completely agree about the need for low-cost housing and I think mixed market/sub-market buildings are a good way to provide it. Does anybody know specifically what the problems are holding up the development?

It's one thing if there's no funding or financing but it's just sad to have projects like this on hold due to red tape. Unfortunately the city does not have a good track record when it comes to facilitating good development (see: Jazz site a couple blocks away).
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  #30  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2011, 1:09 PM
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I believe the delay to which Cantwell refers is the absurd height restriction for Gottingen St which limits the building to 5 floors, stepping DOWN on the Maitland St side. Totally nuts. Only in Halifax, with its irrational tall-building phobia, would this happen.
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  #31  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2011, 9:41 PM
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Hopefully when the Central Plan is developed, the building heights limits will be such that the Central Plan will encourage significant population growth in the Northend. Too many downtown developments have been delayed or cancelled because of the existing height phobia which seems to be more of a phobia of the vocal minority than the majority of residents.
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  #32  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2012, 2:11 AM
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I was back in town a couple weeks ago and the changes on Gottingen Street are pretty impressive. It looks like every other building has some kind of construction happening. I could see it becoming a vibrant commercial area in a few years, assuming a few more substantial housing projects are completed. There's a ton of potential here and it would add a lot to Halifax to have another strong neighbourhood.

Here are a couple pictures.

I think literally half or more of the buildings here have been built or redeveloped during the last 10 years. An addition is going in on top of the red brick building. Not sure if the whole thing is going to be redone or if a new business is moving in to the ground floor. It is great to see all these fine-grained projects instead of large-scale demolition and redevelopment. The best neighbourhoods have a diverse mix of buildings.



A new building is going in here and hopefully next year the empty lot will be developed (this is in the 2215 Gottingen project thread). In time I'm sure more of the older buildings will be improved.



This building could have been better but actually it is a bit better in person than I expected it to be and it is a lot better than the empty lot. I think the right strategy for Gottingen today is to quickly fill in the holes. Over the years the neighbourhood will improve and some of the older sites can then be revisited. The alternative approach of "waiting for the perfect project" doesn't work -- perfect projects don't exist and great projects usually build on what was already built nearby. Gottingen needs to evolve organically over time.



The only big disappointment is that the Gottingen Terrace townhouses have not materialized. I'm not sure if they're still in the works or if the project is dead. If that lot is filled in it will tie the commercial stretch of Gottingen in with the more residential stretch to the north. In the future projects like the Citadel Hotel redevelopment will reintegrate Gottingen with the downtown area. The pedestrian-friendly commercial core will be greatly expanded.
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  #33  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2012, 2:42 AM
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Great street level perspectives, someone123. Gottingen Street is starting to look like a very pleasant street.

Just imagine what the neighbourhood would be like if the Cogswell overpass were demolished and the downtown area becomes more seamlessly integrated with the north-end.
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  #34  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2012, 1:10 PM
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Good article in the CH about the housing strategy on Gottingen.

TAYLOR: Gottingen Street part of provincial housing strategy

http://thechronicleherald.ca/busines...using-strategy
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  #35  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2012, 2:55 PM
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The problem I have with the Gottingen St. "plans" are the Province says they want to work with the community, but they are already talking to HRM about the need for 16-20 floor height limits. If they have proceeded this far in their planning they should already be talking to the community. No wonder people get pissed off and NIMBYish when the major part of public plans for public projects are decided before they have any input.

Now there could be zero plans at all, given how contradictory and confusing the article is. The architects say the site will be developed "in the very near future", the provincial spokesperson says there are no formal plans but the properties are up for discussion, the city has been asked to change it's corridor plan, provincial departments may be asked to move into expanded buildings ... where are we in the process?
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  #36  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2012, 3:09 PM
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Unfortunately according to the 2006 census the tract centred around Gottingen from Cornwallis to North lost people (4,699 from 4,943), as did the tract north of North. It seems safe to say that this has reversed but it's important to look at hard data. Perceptions are often totally wrong.
Older post, but I just read it. The decline in population might not be a bad sign, and was reversed in the 2011 census. There may be fewer people per unit, but it may represent new people coming into the neighbourhood who can afford more space. It's not uncommon to find densities drop as a neighbourhood gentrifies. It does highlight the need for new construction though: households are smaller on average than in the past, so unless you're adding units neighbourhoods can see modest population declines. In the 2011 census some peninsula census tracts had modest population declines and rising housing prices: the area's remain popular, but there are smaller households in the same number of units.
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  #37  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2012, 5:28 PM
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The problem I have with the Gottingen St. "plans" are the Province says they want to work with the community, but they are already talking to HRM about the need for 16-20 floor height limits. If they have proceeded this far in their planning they should already be talking to the community. No wonder people get pissed off and NIMBYish when the major part of public plans for public projects are decided before they have any input.

Now there could be zero plans at all, given how contradictory and confusing the article is. The architects say the site will be developed "in the very near future", the provincial spokesperson says there are no formal plans but the properties are up for discussion, the city has been asked to change it's corridor plan, provincial departments may be asked to move into expanded buildings ... where are we in the process?
The corridor plans are still in the vision/discussion phase. There hasn't been any submission to council based on a recent report saying the DA process will have to remain in place for a little while longer.

That said - there is nothing wrong with developers going to staff and asking for consideration of a change. That type of lobbying happens all the time on both sides so the planners will have to make up their minds as to how they proceed with their recommendation. Regardless, the developer can still lobby to council for a height change as well.

It will be interesting to see how the new council deals with this because if it becomes slanted with more 'lets move HRM into the future, developer bigger and better' I suspect staff might become more liberal in their thinking. That or it would be fired back to make changes for more height.
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  #38  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2012, 9:12 PM
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Part of the concern with starting the discussion about height is that people tend to dig in their heels on that particular characteristic of new development and ignore everything else. They see low heights as a win and taller buildings as a loss.

Most of the existing highrises in the North End are very poor quality. Many of the lowrise buildings are poorly designed too and they would likely be better for the neighbourhood if they were good buildings, even if they were taller. How the buildings relate to their surroundings and the amenities they have are more important than building heights, at least when we're talking about 8 vs. 12 vs. 16. It gets particularly silly when there are arguments about reducing highrise buildings by 2 floors; that is what happened with St. Joseph.
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  #39  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2013, 3:21 AM
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It's looking pretty likely that Gottingen will have a new grocery store soon. Community Carrot Co-op just won some money and they are apparently trying to lease in a building that is currently being renovated. Anybody know which building this might be?
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  #40  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2013, 11:18 AM
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Not sure of the building, but this store will be the one with huge incidence of shoplifting and theft. There is a reason why this kind of store has avoided that neighborhood.
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