HRM Interim Growth Controls
Posted Sunday, February 15, 2004 by gregor
This is message is based on emails by Jerry MacKinlay, coordinator of the Halifax Harbour Watershed Coalition harbour@ecologyaction.ca, and Patricia Manuel Professor of Planning at Dalhousie University pmanuel@dal.ca.
Please try to attend a public meeting (details below) in support of the Three Month Development Moratorium announced by HRM on Thursday, January 22. They are imposing a three-month moratorium on approvals of new large-scale housing developments in most unserviced areas.
For more details: http://www.halifax.ca/regionalplanning/
>Regional Planning in HRM > Upcoming Events >Public Information Meetings on Interim Growth Controls >
At the meetings, HRM will present an overview of the current regulations, the scope of the moratorium, and approaches for interim growth controls as the Regional Plan is developed. The meetings are designed to receive feedback from the public about these
approaches.
Monday, February 16
Cole Harbour Place
Forest Hills Parkway
Cole Harbour
Time: 7:00pm
Thursday, February 19
Harold T. Barrett Jr. High School
862 Beaverbank Road
Beaver Bank
Time: 7:00pm
Monday February 23
Halifax West High School
283 Thomas Raddall Dr
Halifax
Time: 7:00pm
If you can't attend the information meetings, then please write, e-mail or phone your district councillor to show your support. A PUBLIC HEARING will follow the information meetings, likely some time at the end of March (prior to the expiry date of the Moritorium). At this hearing, HRM councillors will be asked to vote to approve the interim development control measures that HRM staff are now developing and will recommend. As you can appreciate, it will difficult to procede with regional planning if, when the moritorium expires, these measure are not in place. That, of course, is what those opposing the moritorium hope to achieve - convincing enough councillors TO VOTE AGAINST the development control measures.
So, motivate all those you can think of to turn out for these meetings, and especially for the public meeting, whenever it happens. AND contact your councillor. Also, WRITE LETTERS TO THE NEWSPAPERS - the press is reporting on this story of course.
The moratorium is a creation of the Province (albeit requested by HRM council). Call/write your MLA and insist on continued Provincial support for the moratorium initiative. Our provincial politicians should also come out in support of this effort and their municipal colleagues - it affects 1/3rd of the population and 1/10th of the land mass.
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