[Halifax] West End Mall Future Growth Node 15 Buildings | 90m | Proposed

[Saul Goode]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

What I don't understand about this opposition is that these residents are winning the lottery. They have a detached home on the Peninsula, where the number of detached homes will literally never be higher than it is today. Meanwhile, developments like this West End Mall ones are replacing parking lots with more desirable uses and services. We hear so much, "if only I could have been one of the lucky ones in Vancouver who bought a house 30 years ago", but this is literally what's happening now in Halifax - these people are the Vancouverites of 30 years ago.

Excellent point to which most NIMBYs seem oblivious.

[worldlyhaligonian]

I thought the province made some kind of decision that made it unnecessary for the "public engagement sessions" in order to fast track developments that constantly get delayed by these folks.

The people who are against this are personally responsible for the situation Halifax is in and will cash out from their homes (which aren't really too close by - busybody rules, anyone?) and pass away well before any of this gets built.

Glad to see that this will go ahead, regardless of the tactics employed here... I actually thought it was a joke when the OP said 'unruly'.

Halifax would become Manhattan? Add that to the "Hall of Fame" for stupid comments.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

What I don't understand about this opposition is that these residents are winning the lottery. They have a detached home on the Peninsula, where the number of detached homes will literally never be higher than it is today. Meanwhile, developments like this West End Mall ones are replacing parking lots with more desirable uses and services. We hear so much, "if only I could have been one of the lucky ones in Vancouver who bought a house 30 years ago", but this is literally what's happening now in Halifax - these people are the Vancouverites of 30 years ago.

I see this idea of 'winning the lottery' regularly on the internet, but I think the key point that gets missed is that these are just places to live for people, in a neighbourhood that they know and love. Sure, as their neighbourhood becomes more desirable, their house prices increase, but what good does that do for a person who just wants to live there?

If they decide to "cash in", then they still have to live somewhere else, so buy another place and pay high deed transfer taxes, real estate fees, etc? No lottery win there. Try to find an available rental unit (a challenge in itself), and then watch your "lottery win" deplete with high rental fees? Etc. etc.

Not sure that most people look at it as a 'lottery win', except for those who went into it as an investment, but those people aren't attending a meeting, they're sitting home and drooling over their potential bank accounts...

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I see this idea of 'winning the lottery' regularly on the internet, but I think the key point that gets missed is that these are just places to live for people, in a neighbourhood that they know and love. Sure, as their neighbourhood becomes more desirable, their house prices increase, but what good does that do for a person who just wants to live there?

If they decide to "cash in", then they still have to live somewhere else, so buy another place and pay high deed transfer taxes, real estate fees, etc? No lottery win there. Try to find an available rental unit (a challenge in itself), and then watch your "lottery win" deplete with high rental fees? Etc. etc.

Not sure that most people look at it as a 'lottery win', except for those who went into it as an investment, but those people aren't attending a meeting, they're sitting home and drooling over their potential bank accounts...

To expand upon those points, they see a neighborhood they know and which has not had significant change in many decades suddenly facing change which sounds so huge that they cannot get their heads around it. What they foresee rightly or wrongly is gridlocked traffic, lots of noise both from that and from the incessant decades-long construction, loss of quiet enjoyment of their properties, lots of new and scary people bustling about, services being relocated elsewhere, etc etc. About the only sure thing is that we know HRM will not be widening (or building new) streets, making things worse in that regard.

HRM needed to have a more comprehensive vision of what they are calling for beyond just the x-number of new residents/units that got the headlines. Maybe they do, but that got lost. If people saw new parks and green spaces, improved transit, new commercial space replacing the existing, etc., perhaps the reaction would have been different.

[Colin May]

Following on from my previous post re the decline in HRM there is this comment in the Globe and Mail re drug abuse " This is a good review of the policy failures to date. I have lived and worked in Vancouver's DTES for many years and have watched as the problem went from bad to unbearable. When I first moved here I used to tell visiting friends that it looks bad, but the people aren't interested in harming passersby. Now I have to tell people to avoid walking in the area and that they need to have their wits about them in case of an attack. It's incredibly frustrating to watch your city crumble this way. To make matters worse, any time I suggest that the criminal element needs to be dealt with, that the mental health problems need to be committed, or that those addicts who OD multiple times a day need to be put into a controlled detox; I'm called a fascist or accused of inhumanity. From my perspective, one that's been informed by watching the failed policies of letting people harm themselves continuously, what we've done is the opposite of compassion. Leaving fellow citizens in a hopeless spiral from which they can't escape is not compassionate. When the grip of addiction and crime become too strong outside intervention is required. I'm happy to see others talking about common-sense help, finally."
The article from the always excellent health columnist Andre Picard is here : https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...ions/#comments
Yesterday I briefly sat in Alderney library reading a sports magazine and watched a street person outside pick up a butt and slowly take it apart for inspection before throwing it back on the sidewalk.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I see this idea of 'winning the lottery' regularly on the internet, but I think the key point that gets missed is that these are just places to live for people, in a neighbourhood that they know and love. Sure, as their neighbourhood becomes more desirable, their house prices increase, but what good does that do for a person who just wants to live there?

If they decide to "cash in", then they still have to live somewhere else, so buy another place and pay high deed transfer taxes, real estate fees, etc? No lottery win there. Try to find an available rental unit (a challenge in itself), and then watch your "lottery win" deplete with high rental fees? Etc. etc.

Certainly there is a financial component to the "lottery win" comment, the most obvious being the "cash-out-and-move-to-a-cheaper-locale-to-perpetuate-the-problem-on-them" opportunity. However, even if someone is looking at it just as a home there are obvious financial benefits that should be recognized. This includes the security of knowing you will have funds for a nice retirement home or to pass on to you kids, and the ability to borrow against an asset to fund renovations or in an emergency. With our property tax cap in place there is no personal downside (certainly there are societal downsides) to having your home become a million dollar asset.

All that being said, my comment was more about the fact that people such as these (and myself if we're being transparent) have won the housing lottery. No one is coming and taking our detached homes away. We are in an elite club. We have the sold out tickets to the Taylor Swift concert.

That's not to suggest that change is not a very real impact on people's lives or emotional state, or that people shouldn't advocate for themselves when change happens around them. But I think there is some duty there to recognize how lucky we are, and to be thoughtful and introspective in that advocacy.

To Keith's post, I myself have very strong concerns that HRM (and particularly Halifax Transit) will not properly plan for and manage the transportation implications of this development. However, that's precisely what this kind of engagement is for - to identify those concerns and to hold their feet to the fire over them. In my experience, the alternative (come back with a fully fleshed plan that shows all the parks and everything) ends up with anger along the lines of, "you planned everything without asking us".

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Certainly there is a financial component to the "lottery win" comment, the most obvious being the "cash-out-and-move-to-a-cheaper-locale-to-perpetuate-the-problem-on-them" opportunity. However, even if someone is looking at it just as a home there are obvious financial benefits that should be recognized. This includes the security of knowing you will have funds for a nice retirement home or to pass on to you kids, and the ability to borrow against an asset to fund renovations or in an emergency. With our property tax cap in place there is no personal downside (certainly there are societal downsides) to having your home become a million dollar asset.

All that being said, my comment was more about the fact that people such as these (and myself if we're being transparent) have won the housing lottery. No one is coming and taking our detached homes away. We are in an elite club. We have the sold out tickets to the Taylor Swift concert.

That's not to suggest that change is not a very real impact on people's lives or emotional state, or that people shouldn't advocate for themselves when change happens around them. But I think there is some duty there to recognize how lucky we are, and to be thoughtful and introspective in that advocacy.

To Keith's post, I myself have very strong concerns that HRM (and particularly Halifax Transit) will not properly plan for and manage the transportation implications of this development. However, that's precisely what this kind of engagement is for - to identify those concerns and to hold their feet to the fire over them. In my experience, the alternative (come back with a fully fleshed plan that shows all the parks and everything) ends up with anger along the lines of, "you planned everything without asking us".

There is absolutely truth to what you are saying, but I will hold my position on the 'lottery win' concept. Nobody is winning here to be truthful, in the sense that we are all impacted by the negative effect upon society. Colin's posts above touch on at least part of the negative aspects, but as you allude to, it's more far-reaching than that even.

I'm trying to take a more holistic view of things, in that the 'protesters' have legitimate reasons to be upset, just as the pro-development people do. I think it's missing the point to say that they should shut up and be happy because they 'won the lottery' with their home values (just as I think it's amateurish of Councillor Cleary to present them in a negative fashion to the media). I think Keith explained it well.

TBH, I'm always left with the impression that the 'lottery win' comments are more about resentment of people who already have homes in a difficult market than anything else, when IMHO the resentment should be focused on our politicians and planners who allowed this to happen in the first place - but it's much easier to focus ire on some misdirected little old lady with a bullhorn than the people who allowed this to happen in the first place.

That said, it's also clear that there is a 'greater good' in play here, whereby the development has clear value to a number of people (future residents), and to the city in general. 'The city' will benefit from more density, maybe some pressure off of housing (unless future population increases outpace housing starts - making these developments even more important), plus benefit to bus transit. Over all, the benefits to the city outweigh the detriment to the locals, so this should go through. And it will, but it doesn't mean that we can't all be a little more understanding about others' points of view in these cases.

However, I realize it's complex, and we will all have different opinions and methods of processing what it means to us, so I'll leave it at that.

I agree with yours and Keith's concerns about transportation, as well. It's telling that the city is able to present a development such as this, espousing the importance of density, etc., yet not be able to come up with anything greater than adding more buses (and bike lanes, which are great and important, but honestly they will never be a method of moving large volumes of people in Halifax). I hope that things like this will be addressed, and that planning will future-proof us from potential negatives of continual population growth at greater than historic rates, but the myopic thinking of council doesn't provide me with a level of confidence in them to believe that it will all work out.

There. I've said enough. I won't even talk about how there seems to be little planning for better communities that provide a good mix of high and low density housing supported with walkable streets and local retail... it's way easier to scold the people who live in houses because their values have increased while we've decided that there will never be another SFH built in the city... Stop, I say!

[Saul Goode]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I agree with yours and Keith's concerns about transportation, as well. It's telling that the city is able to present a development such as this, espousing the importance of density, etc., yet not be able to come up with anything greater than adding more buses (and bike lanes, which are great and important, but honestly they will never be a method of moving large volumes of people in Halifax). I hope that things like this will be addressed, and that planning will future-proof us from potential negatives of continual population growth at greater than historic rates, but the myopic thinking of council doesn't provide me with a level of confidence in them to believe that it will all work out.

Indeed.

And that goes equally for Joe Ramia's Mic Mac Mall project. Dropping 2K units into that little space, along with redevelopment of the mall, could create some serious in-out vehicle congestion. I'm in favor of the project, but haven't heard HRM's thoughts on moving people and vehicles in and out. I read (here, I believe) that the Micmac Blvd/Lancaster Drive - 118 intersection will be replaced with a roundabout. I could see traffic on Woodland getting backed up there...

As we've discussed here before, it's an awkward area already, with inadequate interchanges (118-111) and virtually no space to expand or improve.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

There. I've said enough. I won't even talk about how there seems to be little planning for better communities that provide a good mix of high and low density housing supported with walkable streets and local retail... it's way easier to scold the people who live in houses because their values have increased while we've decided that there will never be another SFH built in the city... Stop, I say!

Honestly, I think discussions like this are the most important conversations we can be having at this time so don't feel the need to shut up!

And to be very clear, I'm not scolding people who happen to own homes (not to say that isn't a message from some other people). Keith was shockingly astute and empathetic in his characterization of the situation. These people didn't ask for this, and there is a certain element of surprise and shock that comes from that. I think our country (the collective whole) has done ourselves a really terrible disservice of basing our identity and goals on the idea of "single family homes for all" because we are now finding that there are mathematical limits to that model and people are feeling like the rug is being pulled out from under them. It's becoming evident that owning a detached home is a certain level of privilege, particularly so close to the places people by and large want to be (cities).

Being in that place of privilege wasn't something people asked for, nor does it exclude them from the discussion. However, it does put a certain burden (however unwanted) on them (me included) in terms of how we engage in the discussion and what our demands mean for the people on the other side of that privilege line.

[IanWatson]

To bring it back to the location at hand, my understanding is that one of the key factors here is that there is massive Halifax Water infrastructure running right by the site. Very often, servicing capacities are a limit on density, but not so in this location, so there is a certain element of capitalizing on opportunities for density where we have it. Though that of course does not eliminate the need to have discussions about the other aspects of development and community building.

[MonctonRad]

One of the virtues of building density in this location is that if HRM ever did grow a pair and develop regional commuter rail, this would be an obvious location for a commuter rail station.

In fact, it is so obvious, that the city should look at making the proposed underground bus terminal a "multi-modality" station, allowing easy transfer from bus to rail for the commuting public.

[Keith P.]

Let's not get into that whole "privilege" quagmire, please. Too often that seems to be a license for others to penalize or punish people whom they perceive to have something they do not, either through good long-term planning on the part of the "privileged" or otherwise through no fault of their own.

I know this is difficult but having ths fall out of the sky and land upon those residents makes me wonder how many other such bombs are likely to fall in the future. I know there have been pie-in-the-sky projections of HRM having a million residents by some future date but they honestly have sounded like politicians just bloviating ($1 to Bousquet for that). But if indeed that is a legitimate target then surely there should be some group somewhere within govt that is looking at maps of neighborhoods and communities who are spitballing where all those people are supposed to live. We have not seen this to my knowledge. That alone could do a whole lot to help reduce these sort of surprises if communicated properly.

[MonctonRad]

If HRM is to have a million residents, then there needs to be a coherent mass transit plan. The only plan I see right now is a few electric fast ferries and some BRT.

Sorry, that isn't going to pass the test of time.........

[Saul Goode]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I know there have been pie-in-the-sky projections of HRM having a million residents by some future date but they honestly have sounded like politicians just bloviating ($1 to Bousquet for that).

Yes, agreed. Same with Houston's 2M goal for NS. I haven't heard a single politician explain why they believe that the current growth rate will continue, only that they do believe it. Based on exactly what? There's no more evidence to support that position than there was ten years ago to predict what's happening now.

Both may happen someday, but not in my lifetime (and I plan to be here for decades yet).

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If HRM is to have a million residents, then there needs to be a coherent mass transit plan. The only plan I see right now is a few electric fast ferries and some BRT.

But you left out bike lanes, oh sorry, "active transportation". Surely that will be the solution to all our transportation woes!

[Dmajackson]

Apparently Dollarama is moving back into Halifax Shopping Centre. They've only been in Mumford for a couple of years so I'm thinking this might be the start of commercial relocations for this project.

[Musicman Halifax]

Saw a post somewhere today that a development permit has been issued to start this project.