Council to debate moratorium after staff report completed in mid-month
Halifax Herald
Thursday, April 1, 2004
By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER / City Hall Reporter
A regional councillor who endorsed a 90-day development freeze back in January spoke out against it at the close of a public meeting on development controls Wednesday afternoon.
"We moved in haste by bringing in the 90-day moratorium," Deputy Mayor Steve Streatch said of council's work-stoppage order in the municipality's unserviced areas.
"I can tell you today that I never want to hear that word in HRM again."
His words were echoed by Coun. Harry McInroy (Eastern Passage-Cole Harbour South), who also added the word "sprawl" to the banned-word list.
The issue was first raised by a handful of the 30 people who spoke at Wednesday's hearing, including one man who said the wording denigrated him.
"I feel like I'm a second-rate citizen when I hear that word," said the road builder from the Musquodoboit area.
City planning staffers have been using "sprawl" to describe unplanned growth in unserviced areas - something Halifax needs to rein in, they say.
That's because Halifax is in the midst of drafting its 25-year plan.
While it does that, planning staff want interim restrictions on growth so any regional plan concepts aren't superseded by unplanned growth.
After hearing from 85 people at a public hearing that spanned two days, councillors deferred debate on the matter Wednesday afternoon. They're now looking for a supplementary staff report, expected to come back to council the week of April 12.
Some councillors said they had a hard time coming to terms with staff recommendations after hearing from so many presenters.
"Eighty-five people have spoken so far in this public hearing process and 68 per cent of them . . . spoke against the proposal that's on the floor," said Coun. Len Goucher (Bedford).
City staffers have said planning is needed because of the debilitating cost to the municipality of providing services in areas not already on city sewer and water hookups.
Council has already passed first reading of bylaw amendments that would not permit any new roads to be built in unserviced areas and would limit development to 25 lots a year in subdivisions for which plans were received before Jan. 22, when the province approved the 90-day moratorium.
Mr. Streatch, who represents Eastern Shore-Musquodoboit Valley, said he's not comfortable with some of the staff recommendations and would like to see a more balanced approach to the interim growth direction.
"What I see in front of us, in my opinion at this time, is unacceptable."
He'd like to see more of his district exempt from planning regulations and wants landowners with family lots to have the ability to develop them for their siblings and offspring.
A handful of people spoke in favour of the moratorium and many - including council - commended planning staff for their hard work and commitment.
Overdevelopment leads to a lose-lose situation, said Martin Singh of Musquodoboit Harbour.
"The family loses but also the city loses because they are not in effect protecting the environment or . . . the great tax expense that has to be incurred by the taxpayer of HRM," he said.
Rebecca O'Brien of the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax compared the city's former building practices to the smokers she and her sister encountered as children on bus rides to Cape Breton.
"The right that they had had an impact on all of us," she said.
Paul Pettipas, CEO of the Nova Scotia Home Builders Association, told councillors to respect the small-business owners and landowners who came to speak before them.
With the bulk of Nova Scotia's residential construction sector employed in the municipality, he said it's "no wonder" industry members reacted in a negative and forceful manner.
He warned council that the current proposal continues to expose the city to lawsuits from property owners who have been shut out because they did not have a conceptual plan in place before Jan. 22. Property tax appeals could also be an issue from people whose land value has greatly decreased, he said.
To try to offer a compromise to interim growth over the next 18 months, a few councillors expressed an interest in the "Hammonds Plains model" that was instituted after widespread growth there in the early 1990s.
The model allows for the development of 20 lots over four years.
That possibility will be included in the staff report, which will be released before the mid-April meeting.
After the public outcry and a Tuesday afternoon session that had to be adjourned after 100 people stormed into council chambers demanding access to the meeting, one councillor noted things haven't even reached a boiling point yet.
"If we think the decisions today on the interim growth measures are tough and difficult, . . . wait until we get to the regional plan, when we make decisions that will last for five, 10, 15, 20 years," said Coun. Bob Harvey (Lower Sackville).