[halifaxboyns]

The observation tower was forced out by staff.
When this hit the airwaves, I wouldn't be surprised if a few people on the planning staff had a hard time breathing or a few palpitations.

But Keith is right - the rules were proposed back in a time when the economic development of the city (at best) was still in the 15 to 20 storey commercial tower and condos weren't hitting the heights we see today. So considering the context of adjacent development and when the rules were written, of course this isn't going to meet the rules nor will it ever.

If council goes forward with this, they would essentially be reconsidering some key planning principles to come into now (versus when the policies about the ramparts came into effect back in the late 70's). Is that okay? Well, I'm always a firm believer that keeping policy up to date is important and certainly this concept is roughly 40 years old. It could do with a revisit - my only concern is that this is a concept (I think) that should be done as part of a regional planning exercise, not because of an application. The reason I say that is that you could put more emphasis to going forward with much taller buildings or changing the policy if you tied it into something like focusing such high density into 'opportunity areas'. Example: Let's say a new regional plan identified the hydrostone or the lands around the forum as an opportunity area for redevelopment. You could tie policy to encourage a specific form of development to the idea of encouraging high density/taller buildings to these opportunity areas.

I don't know if I would be okay with such a tall building being so prominent...but, I would get used to it if it was approved. It's not make or break for me.

But I am a firm believer of 'playing the game' that the HT wants to play. So if this doesn't go forward, I'd want places like the lands around the forum, Agricola, Gottingen Street and Quinpool (some of the area's the HT minions have continually identified as the 'ideal' place for tall buildings (their words)) identified as opportunity centres and go 48 stories, or higher.