Building ban may ease in rural areas Council revisits moratorium The Halifax Herald Limited Friday, April 16, 2004 By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER / City Hall Reporter The wheels have been set in motion to allow the eastern portion of Halifax Regional Municipality a bit more development leeway over the next 18 months. During a special council meeting Thursday afternoon, Deputy Mayor Steve Streatch (Eastern Shore-Musquodoboit Valley) received unanimous support from his fellow councillors for special considerations to districts 1, 2 and 3. Specifically, property owners there would be allowed to develop a maximum of eight lots per parcel of land already approved prior to Jan. 22, the day a wide-ranging development moratorium was put in place. One of the keys to the amendment is that it offers flexibility for some new road construction in the three districts. Developers and landowners in the municipality's other 20 districts are not allowed to build any new roads in unserviced areas while the interim growth strategy, approved at council Tuesday night and expected to last about 18 months, is in place. Now that it has passed first reading, the amendment will go before a public hearing on May 4. The affected districts essentially make up the Eastern Shore, Preston-Porters Lake and Fall River-Waverley-Dutch Settlement area - places that, their councillors say, don't need development restrictions. "A lot of communities in HRM are very fortunate in the prosperity they have found themselves experiencing over the last few years but some of our communities are not so fortunate," Mr. Streatch said. Their communities have a lot of "catching up" to do, he said, and shouldn't have the same restrictions placed on them, he said. Relaxing the rules would help the three districts accept the 25-year regional plan the municipality is drafting, he said. Halifax wants to direct its future settlements so that consideration can be given - ahead of time - to where to build roads and put municipal infrastructure. The municipality has spent tens of millions of dollars in water, sewer and roads to service the new developments that have gone unchecked in the past decade. Some councillors questioned whether growth in the three districts had truly been as unfortunate as Mr. Streatch indicated. "Are the problems much less prominent in these areas?" asked Coun. Reg Rankin, whose Hammonds Plains-Timberlea district has grown dramatically since the 1990s. The councillor for Prince's Lodge-Clayton Park West also questioned whether places like Fall River and Porters Lake were still waiting for their boon in residential development. "I would have thought that those areas would have benefited" from development already, noted Coun. Debbie Hum. The concerns are still there, said city planner Kurt Pyle, noting later that District 1 (Eastern Shore-Musquodoboit Valley) is "less of a concern" than its neighbouring two districts. A staff report noted that 516 lots had been approved for development there in the past six years, compared to 2,362 in the same time period for Mr. Rankin's district. Staff made no recommendation going into Thursday's special meeting but a staff report said the amendment will have "negative impacts on future capital budgets if accelerated unserviced development occurs." Fall River is "done" with development, said its councillor, Krista Snow. "Unless we can start stacking houses," she said. Her residents in Waverley and Oakfield would like the option to build, she said. "We owe it to them," she said. Mr. Streatch said council still has an "off-ramp" because the amendment will be reviewed after six months. But Mr. Pyle noted council will have to advertise for another public hearing to do that.