NO high density multi-unit bldgs on Young Avenue

Centre Plan Package B and its damaging new policies for Young Avenue

As most of you may have seen in the media, the proposed 2020 Centre Plan Package B (residential) contains several late policy add-ons which threaten to undo recent council motions that were passed to protect the character of Young Avenue. These policy statements were so late, they were tacked onto the very last page of the Package B.

The city is proposing a new policy (No 10.36) which will allow a development agreement for the lot, reducing the recently passsed 80' minuimum lot width to 52', and eliminating the single family R-1 designation. 

In its place, they will allow 7 multi-unit apartments/condos on this site, with only a 6' side yard setback. This will look like tenement housing. 

Existing maximum height is 35' in R-1 single family. This new policy will allow these buildings to be 46' high, based on an additional 11' of "penthouse".

And the tightly spaced configuration is in complete contrast to the airy and spacious placement of homes on the avenue. 

Good planning will tell you that the spaces between buildings are as important as the buildings themselves.

This last minute addition to the very last page of the Package B document will result in a 360' stretch of streetscape that will completely ruin this section of one of Halifax's most beautiful streetscapes (as recognised by the Canadian Register of Historic Places, and by the National Trust of Canada).

To rub salt in the wound, the City has also added a second policy (10.35), which will allow any pre-existing house on Young Avenue to be replaced with a 6 unit apartment building (as long as the facade is retained).  This policy serves no useful purpose except to open up the homes to re-sale to developers who want to densify any existing property on the avenue. 

This policy is unnecessary and damaging.

The large mansions are already grandfathered within the existing R-1 single family zoning for internal conversions up to 4 units, and many of them already are configured this way.  The new policy would allow a virtual demolition and extension of footprint size, as long as the facade was retained.

Both of these proposed policy statements are examples of poor planning which cater to the profit motives of developers, and the tax coffers of the City. 

Neither policy will protect the unique character of Young Avenue.

Please continue to protest the short-sighted determination of the city to densify Young Avenue.

Written comments on Package B can be sent to planhrm@halifax.ca until April 24, 2020.

You can also copy your emails to:

Kelly Denty, Director of Planning and Development at dentyk@halifax.ca

Ben Sivak, Principal Planner at sivakb@halifax.ca

These are the people who are responsible for this situation.  

Councillor Mason was troubled to learn of this late addition.

We have 360 people who signed this petition in November/December 2019 to protest the rogue councillor motion to open up Young Avenue to this kind of densification.  

Thank you all, but now we need your emails and letters as well. 

Before April 24.

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