Land Use Planning in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM)

Telina Debly

Dave Paterson

Envision what will look like in 30 years: daily job 

Planning 101:

What is planning? 

The process of developing and designing areas to meet the community needs: it is not a new idea and has evolved over centuries 

Planning involves: transportation, social, heritage, environmental, land development

Policy: an action a government wants to take: implemented through regulations 

Land-use-by-law: A set of regulations designed to complement policies. Divide municipality into zones 

Zoning: local laws that govern

Everywhere in HRM has zones 

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How do we decide policies and zoning: Its complicated. Project idea and proposals (create)->implement->feedback-> amend 

Why does it matter: it can make complete communities- livability by prioritising 

• Access to essential services 

• Affordable and accessible housing 

Planning HRM

1950S settlement pattern: compact metro area surrounded by rural landscape and seashore 

1970/80/90s- increasing settlement along highways and in suburbs

2006- first regional plan to constrain growth/ recognize the serious financial and environmental implications of dispersed growth– Municipality created a plan to help the city

Planning framework: 

Regional planning- big and strategic moves 

Community planning- property by property 

Planned growth-> important places 

#1 Issue is affordability and house: environmental and economic too

HRM- 10% of NS land

200 KM Long 

Bigger than PEI 

Halifax+ Dartmouth+Bedford + County= HRM

481 zones-> 23 plans 

200 communities 

2017- Integrated mobility plan 

2018- Green network plan 

2020- HalifAct 

Future 2030- low carbon pathway; building emissions and transportation, efficient 

Densely populated spaces->  over pay in taxes to offset the costs of travel to ikea 

Municipality and provincial government don't have a good relationship now-

Some outcomes of this an urban developer can go over the municipalities head and go to provincial government to get approved 

Its politically easier for a developer to build in rural areas instead of city where planning is key to success 

Urban Renewl 

1960s Vancouver Video- Economic and social issues are displayed: old, crowded and broken houses. Higher rates of TB-> immigrants → There plan was to build a apartment building and condos and allow people to move from houses into those and then they will demolish and build apartments block by block

Same thing happened to halifax in the 50s and 60s 

Africville and Cogswell: Demolished in early 60s 

Service of sewer and water was stopped right before these communities 

Cogswell-> all demolished for a highway and road network-> failed and now putting buildings around it 

Example; Studentification 

Waterloo, ON-> 2 universities right near each other 

The problem: between the 80s and 2000s they had huge growth for the universities 

There solutions was to change the single homes around these universities to big apartments buildings– but many students were cramming into these houses already 

How; purpose built student rentals: sometimes furnished: mixed use: many bedrooms 

Results: studentification: the distinct social, cultural, economic, physical transformations within university towns which are… 

Social and cultural transformations: displacement of establish residents and transportation 

There are lifestyles conflicts with these social groups 

Students bring a lot of advantages: consumers, company recruits, night life 

Is this happening to Halifax: Maybe not to the extent-> not by whole neighbourhoods 

This example presents the difficulties of urban planning: some people were happy with this and others not. School year in the neighbourhoods would be crazy but summers dead-> not sustainable