[Halifax] Promenade Robie South | 90 m | 31 & 30 fl | U/C

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Saul Goode

The structure had to be separated from the foundation and lifted off to be set on the flatbed for the move. I understand Leil has done lots of these transfers over the years and had never lost one before. It's always a risk with structures this old which have been modified (and potentially compromised) over the decades.

Not an expert on house moving, but I've always seen them jacked up in stages, which is very slow and deliberate. I'm not about to question the experience of Leil, but engineering is all about getting the necessary information to avoid catastrophic failure that could result in injury or death. There should be no "let's see what happens"... they need to know the condition of the structure before lifting, or... well... this can happen. Somebody screwed up.

[Drybrain]

My guess would be that someone at some stage made a major error or miscalculation, or there was some kind of equipment malfunction or crane-operator mistake during moving. I'm sure the house was sturdily constructed in the first place, but being 100+ years old, it's obviously possible that some bad renovation or other damage over the years compromised some aspect of the structure. But I also have to assume that the house was thoroughly investigated for anything like that before this process, so that seems unlikely to be the issue? Anyway, I can imagine this will delay things a little on this project as they clean up the mess and figure out what went wrong before trying the same on the remaining houses to be moved.

[OldDartmouthMark]

That was really my point. That moving it by crane seems like a more aggressive (and ultimately time-efficient) way of moving it than slowly jacking it up, and if you are going to do it that way then extensive checking would/should have been done to make sure it was viable. Ultimately, if it wasn't structurally sound enough to move, this should have been known before any lift attempt ever happened, and a decision to either demolish or strengthen up the structure would have to be made.

That said, I'm not going to pretend to know the intricacies of such a move. Plus, seeing a picture of a pile of rubble that used to be a house doesn't really tell the story of what happened. Sometimes even when things are most carefully planned, stuff just goes wrong. I defer to Saul Goode's take on this over an above my own - he seems to have some background knowledge about this. I always value knowledge, such as his, over speculation, such as mine.

I am also a little confused on the house, though, as it doesn't appear to be one that was going to be part of the development, unless something changed in the project that wasn't mentioned in this thread.

Regardless, it appears that there will be a change of plan, and perhaps a different house will be chosen, or more likely there will just be one less saved. Too bad, but that's the way it goes. Progress moves forward even when things go wrong.

[Jreeb]

From what I've heard, the DA relied on these heritage properties being moved. Apparently the developer has 2 back-up properties in case something like this happened...not sure what back-up properties they are referring to but I am guessing this project will be further delayed until a new DA is agreed upon.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Jreeb

From what I've heard, the DA relied on these heritage properties being moved. Apparently the developer has 2 back-up properties in case something like this happened...not sure what back-up properties they are referring to but I am guessing this project will be further delayed until a new DA is agreed upon.

Like they have additional old houses earmarked here or there that they can slide into the Carlton Street spot in case of a house-moving disaster?

[Saul Goode]

Originally Posted by Jreeb

From what I've heard, the DA relied on these heritage properties being moved.

From what you've heard? It's all a matter of public record - moving the houses was part of the agreement.

Apparently the developer has 2 back-up properties in case something like this happened

Seriously, that sounds like something you heard from Anthony Crispino (apologies for the dated SNL reference).

Why not just reproduce (as nearly as possible) the one that was lost?

[Dmajackson]

Housing Accelerator Fund proposed changes for this site;

• This is a registered heritage property, the FAR values are guided by Centre Plan policy.
• Although the FAR value has not changed for this site, staff are proposing a policy change to Policy IM-42 which will enable a heritage DA as an option for this area. This will allow a site-specific application for additional density over the proposed zoning.

Regional Centre Development Requests