Halifax by bad design

Jim Meek makes a very good argument for the changes to the Nova Scotia Municipalities /Development Act  and he has pointed the responsibility at those responsible for its implementation and change. Vision & forward thinking is required by more than the counsellors of HRM. All three levels of government need to be on the same page in order for Halifax to address the wrinkles in the development process…..

By JIM MEEK
Sun. Apr 27 - 8:44 AM

 

GEORGE ARMOYAN, the really smart developer who now runs a holding company, built his fortune in the suburbs of Halifax.

As far as I’m concerned, Armoyan earned his success. He assembled land when it was cheap — and cheaply taxed. Then he used it to build houses that were subsidized as a matter of public policy.

Smart business? You bet.

And Armoyan also built thousands of homes in places where people could afford to live.

But my heavens, Armoyan and other developers were certainly in the right place (Halifax) at the right time (in the ’80s and ’90s). And there’s no doubt the taxpayers of Halifax subsidized both suburban sprawl and the profits it produced.

This is surely understood by the people on Halifax’s tax reform committee, which starts public meetings this week. Yep, they should know that these hidden subsidies have amounted (over time) to hundreds of millions of dollars in Halifax.

In effect, we had a cash transfer system in place, with money going from taxpayers to new homeowners and developers.

According to a 2006 infrastructure study produced for Halifax Regional Municipality, developers in southern Ontario paid fees of up to $29,000 per house in new subdivisions.

In Halifax, the average per-lot fee for a new house is about $5,000. Pre-2002, fees were more of a joke. The infrastructure study says the application fee for putting houses on up to 10 lots was $250 — or 25 bucks per lot. And the more houses you built, the cheaper the fees got.

A concession here: Nova Scotia laws don’t allow municipalities to recover education and health costs, so the comparison with Ontario cities isn’t all that fair. I raise it, then, not to condemn Halifax, but to urge it to follow Ontario’s example.

In the Toronto area, cities and towns can charge developers for water, sewers, highways, electrical power, fire service, libraries, sports facilities, buses and other transportation services.

In Alberta and British Columbia, developers are even expected to put parks in new communities. Imagine that.

Under restrictive provincial laws, Halifax charges only for water, sewers and roads. That’s where the $5,000 per lot goes.

One industry source said the actual per-home cost for all services in new subdivisions is closer to $25,000. The subsidy is $20,000 per house. Build 1,000 of them and you’ve got yourself a $20-million subsidy.

No wonder the peninsula has lost tens of thousands of people to the burbs over the past three decades while Halifax sprawled wildly across the map.

What to do now? I figure young Rodney’s government should amend municipal laws so the city could ask developers to carry the full costs of new neighbourhoods.

Let’s put an end, Mr. Premier, to Halifax by bad design.

Or maybe that should be Halifax by no design.

This mess is really one of the hangovers from the 1996 amalgamation. The planners are still catching up, figuring out how to integrate the hodgepodge of policies from the old city and county governments.

Today, as the Halifax by Design consultants keep telling us, it’s time to clean up our act. That means putting more people on the peninsula, subsidizing (some) housing there and allowing new multi-unit developments to proceed as if Halifax really were a city.

That’s the kind of Halifax we want, one where more people can live downtown, where we can walk to work, where we stop clogging up the roads.

And where we stop handing out cash to people who build the vast new subdivisions that are the root cause of the mess.

None of this should be hard to accomplish, right?

We just need to elect someone like George Armoyan as mayor — someone, that is, who is used to getting things done.

( jmeek@herald.ca)

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Quiet Comment wrote:
The last time I checked the houses built in what some refere to as “Sprawl” pay taxes for the services they recieve. These taxes are a lot more than the taxes on the wood lot that existed there before the developement happened. Also note that the developer installs the roads and services not the city. If the development was built without sewer and water the homeowners must cost share with HRM when they are installed. These added services add to the value of the property so taxes go up. This is based on the value of the property which is ussually quite substantial the same as the South Enders. The fact that people may be moving away from the south end has more to do with the value of the properties there being out of reach of young families. The folks who bought there years ago are still there enjoying the expensive property they bought at reasonable cost 20 years ago. Their kids have moved to the burbs so yes there is a downturn in kids in the area. This does not mean the southend is subsidizing anyone. All the talk of how the developers should pay more is all well and good but like everything else in our society who gets to pay? The end user. The couple who want a nice home in a nice area. All of the developers costs will be sent down the line for the purchaser to pay. I agree more high density development should take place for those who choose to live in the city and want to walk to work. Give others the option of living in the burbs and commutting to work if that is what they want. Stop telling me where and how I should live.