Quote:
Originally Posted by halifaxboyns
This is what HbD does not, but the 'menu' of bonusing is quite small. My hope with this project is to expand the 'menu' to include transportation, affordable housing and parks contributions as a way to get up to whatever height. But if you are going to do that, you have to be prepared to allow for much greater height because the cost will increase to the developer.
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Another big difference is that the price of condos or rentals in Halifax is much lower than prices in Vancouver. There isn't the same potential for developers to pay for amenities in Halifax. To some degree planners in Vancouver have an easy job because they have a windfall from foreign real estate investment to work with. It's not really that hard to make a neighbourhood of $1M condos livable. Actually I'd argue that Vancouver has
not done a particularly good job of planning because housing here is horribly unaffordable. This city has its own NIMBY tendencies to deal with when it comes to stuff like building laneway houses or transit.
I'm also not so convinced that Peninsular Halifax needs a ton of money from developers, or that it's very good from the perspective of economic incentives. We already charge higher taxes in the core, and one of the main arguments for building in the urban core is that most of the required infrastructure is already in place.
My opinion is mostly just that the city needs to do its job and maintain the public realm that they are paid to maintain in the urban core. The cost of doing that isn't even very high, but the political will needs to be there.