Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
Keep in mind that even this year, before the effect of shipbuilding, the city's population is growing at 1.5% and there's lots of great stuff in the development pipeline. Halifax is probably going to have one of the strongest economies in the country moving forward.
If the city plays its cards right it will see a period of higher growth and significant expansion of infrastructure. Now is the perfect time to build lasting improvements like an ambitious transit system. Those are the sorts of things that will move the city up a notch and turn it into more of a self-sustaining mid-sized centre that offers a great quality of life and attracts lots of talented people.
Right now I think the "worst case" scenario for Halifax is a status quo where NIMBYs rule the day and basically block progress (what this looks like is council deferring votes and calling for more studies to create the illusion of progress). If that were to happen the new growth would be largely suburban and there wouldn't be many lasting benefits. Quality of life could actually go down for most people because there'd be more strain on the same dated infrastructure. The city needs to wake up and be more proactive to make sure this doesn't happen.
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Was it really 1.5% already? Wow, that's better than what I was thinking.
If I look at the reaction of some of the councillor's from the announcement, I think some are more ready than others to deal with growth. What will make it more interesting is the revamped smaller council after the next election. I can only hope that some of the more NIMBY-esque councillors (I can think of one from Dartmouth who will remain unnamed) won't be back.
The regional core project will certainly help but I worry that because of this announcement there will be a push to rush the project. This may cause stakeholder groups to feel that they didn't get a fair chance to be consulted and delay implementation, but it's still early and this may not happen. I think if the regional core LUB is done in the 5 year time frame, this should be workable to help take the steam out of the NIMBY's since the goal was to use an HbD type process to make more development as of right. The only question will be how building height will be determined and density levels.
But regardless, I don't think 'status quo' delays or anything like that are going to fly anymore. It will have to be action or else there will be a lot more political problems, than people think. If council think's they were on a hot seat before - this contract may have turned the heat up to white hot.