Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
The question is do you want a heritage preservation district, i.e. a building museum, with limited tenant/owner uses and strict restrictions on what can be changed/renovated? If so that would require massive injections of public funds to private owners or public ownership outright. Or would you prefer what you see in the photograph, which is a pretty vibrant area with some buildings renovated for best use and others awaiting the same? Museums are seldom vibrant.
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I have not seen this trade-off in other cities. Lots of European cities are vibrant and have much stronger heritage preservation laws than Halifax. In fact I would say that preservation of fine-grained buildings often goes hand-in-hand with vibrancy.
It's also important to point out that most of the heritage buildings in downtown Halifax have already been demolished. We are only debating whether to protect the 40% or so that is left. A couple blocks down from this there are multiple highrise development sites.