[halifaxboyns]

Congratulations to Dr. Jill Grant with the Dalhousie School of Urban Planning and Andy Fillmore with HRM's Planning Department on awards for the 2010 CIP Planning Excellence Awards.

Dr. Grant won for Planning Publications - 'Experimental Planning: A practioner's account of Vancouver's success', while HRM won for it's HRM by Design for the Halifax Downtown Core LUB.

HRM's submission (http://www.cip-icu.ca/_CMS/files/2010%20Winner%20-%20City%20Planning.pdf)

Dr. Grant's article (http://www.cip-icu.ca/_CMS/files/2010%20HM%20-%20International%20Development.pdf)

Not too be undone, a friend of mine working with the City of Calgary's Parks division received an honourable mention in the Neighbourhood Planning category. :)

[fenwick16]

Thanks for the information halifaxboyns. Looking through the document, I can see how much work went into the HRMbyDesign. Hopefully it will partly succeed in correcting the mistakes of the Halifax planning strategy (or lack of such, that was created in the 70's by the old planning documents that created viewplanes and ambiguous terms that have hampered Halifax's growth for the past 20 - 30 years).

I feel it is only a partial solution because of the severe height restrictions that it imposes. Unfortunately, we won't know for another 10 - 20 years what effect the HRM by Design will have on Halifax. I think many of the height restrictions will restrict the potential growth that could have been generated. I hope that some of the height restrictions can be modified in the future as required. If so then I think it will be a success.

[halifaxboyns]

Thanks for the information halifaxboyns. Looking through the document, I can see how much work went into the HRMbyDesign. Hopefully it will partly succeed in correcting the mistakes of the Halifax planning strategy (or lack of such, that was created in the 70's by the old planning documents that created viewplanes and ambiguous terms that have hampered Halifax's growth for the past 20 - 30 years).

I feel it is only a partial solution because of the severe height restrictions that it imposes. Unfortunately, we won't know for another 10 - 20 years what effect the HRM by Design will have on Halifax. I think many of the height restrictions will restrict the potential growth that could have been generated. I hope that some of the height restrictions can be modified in the future as required. If so then I think it will be a success.

The good thing about Bylaws is that they are living breathing documents - that evolve through time. So from time to time; they need to change to reflect certain things. So in the case of downtown Halifax - they created HbD to reflect certain things from today. So it's my hope that if they see that HbD isn't working because certain height restrictions are too low - then they can move forward and change them. It also doesn't prevent an applicant from asking for more height through the process either (look at the YMCA/CBC application - they are requesting a height change).

With HRM being over 400,000 - I think you'll see more evolution of thought on this; especially with the senior people in HRM nearing retirement - that will mean new people in higher levels (which will likely bring new ideas to the table - at least I hope so). It would be especially great, if the people who move into these roles bring experience from other big cities like Vancouver, Toronto or...even me in Calgary (that wasn't a shameless plug or anything lol).

Eventually - the LUB will need a freshening up again. It will probably come sooner rather than later (since the Peninsula LUB is from the 90's - that's well over 20 years old!).

[eastcoastal]

Congratulations to Dr. Jill Grant with the Dalhousie School of Urban Planning and Andy Fillmore with HRM's Planning Department on awards for the 2010 CIP Planning Excellence Awards.

Dr. Grant won for Planning Publications - 'Experimental Planning: A practioner's account of Vancouver's success', while HRM won for it's HRM by Design for the Halifax Downtown Core LUB.

HRM's submission (http://www.cip-icu.ca/_CMS/files/2010%20Winner%20-%20City%20Planning.pdf)

Dr. Grant's article (http://www.cip-icu.ca/_CMS/files/2010%20HM%20-%20International%20Development.pdf)

... also won an award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. The Special Jury Award for Small or Medium Community Urban Design

RAIC award page (http://www.raic.org/honours_and_awards/awards_urban/2010recipients/hrm_e.htm)

[Jonovision]

Congrats to Jill! She was a good prof.