Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
Such a ridiculously bad decision back in the early '90s by Halifax council to preserve what was left of the burned-out facade. It has been an albatross around the neck of Barrington St for nearly 3 decades, and likely whatever ultimately comes out of this will not change that very much.
|
I think the real problem is the view plane that creates such a low height limit over the building. This probably would have been a more viable project if the developer could have put even a few floors above the facade. And it could have been a nicer project without the lightwell compromise; it would have been the usual commercial ground floor, maybe some offices for a couple floors above, and then apartments above that.
It reflects poorly on the municipality that they implemented rules that caused this site to sit empty for so long. They should have issued a variance at least for this site in order to get the ball rolling, even without the request of the developer. They could have bumped the one site up to 6 or 8 floors.
On top of the problems with this particular site the streetscaping that has been planned for years was never started and the street remains an unpleasant corridor for loud diesel buses (at least it's not a truck route I guess). For all the noise that is made about improving downtown Halifax, the municipality doesn't actually do much.
When I was in Cuba it was hard not to notice some of the obviously poorly-maintained and dangerous infrastructure. For example, at one point they just sawed off a street sign and left a metal spike extending out of the sidewalk. I saw that in Halifax too last time I was back. Halifax also has a lot of electrical poles, streetcar overhead poles, etc. that predate the Cuban revolution. I think most declining Rust Belt cities in the US have higher quality and better maintained downtown roadways and sidewalks (often from revitalization projects that failed to revitalize anything, but still). Halifax has a fabulously wealthy tax base compared to those dying towns which are down to 1/3 of their original population or embargo-era Havana yet its infrastructure is in many ways comparable or worse.
Prev
Linear Mode
