Article
The Right to the Common
BY KATIE MCKAY
from: http://spacingatlantic.ca/2010/01/26/the-right-to-the-common/
HALIFAX - Last Wednesday January 20th, HRM staff presented
the plan “Improvements to the North Common” [PDF] to a full
house, where there were more people in attendance than there
were chairs. The presentation of the plan lasted an hour, and
although only 30 minutes was set aside for input from the public,
the question period ended up continuing for over an hour and a
half, until only a handful of people were left in the room.
In this new century, we are facing a different kind of threat to public
space— not one of disuse, but of patterns of design and management
that exclude some people and reduce social and cultural diversity... to read more download pdf 
Media Release
Posted 
10-21-09
Take a Chalk Around the Common
Halifax, NS- In support of 350.org, International Day of Climate Action, Friends of Halifax Common are inviting the public to volunteer to help them in drawing a chalk line around the entire perimeter of the original Common. Join them on Friday October 23rd from 12-2 p.m.
Less than 1/3 of the Halifax Common's original 235 acres granted in 1763 by King George III is public open space.
“Our vanishing Halifax Common is a metaphor for the disappearance of our global Common, most urgently our atmosphere & climate” said Sheila Hunt of the Friends. “Our air, water, and land – the common heritage of all people – are being degraded. How we choose to deal with the finite natural resources of our planet has lasting repercussions for future generations."
Volunteers will be supplied with chalk at meeting points around the Common and asked to use their imagination to illustrate the border of the Common with drawings of sheep & cows, cabbage & corn or words to encourage governments to act on climate change.
“Without truly reducing our reliance on fossil fuels we will continue to put the entire global common at risk,” said Gretchen Fitzgerald, Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada, Atlantic Chapter. “We hope this early action to re-define the Common will bring attention to the International Day of Climate Action. The website, <http://www.390.org>www.390.org has information on what people and communities are doing worldwide.”
Meeting points for volunteers to get chalk and directions are: Robie St. at Cunard, Jubilee or University; South Park St. at South or Spring Garden Rd.; Bell Rd. across from the Bengal Lancers and North Park St. at Cogswell.
Click here for a map of the commons
Information on October 24th International Day of Climate Action: www.350.org
Sign the Kyotoplus petition: http://kyotoplus.ca/>http://kyotoplus.ca
Join www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148640510791
For more information contact (en francais aussi)
Peggy Cameron, FHC co-chair and Executive: 902-492-4372
p.cameron@ns.sympatico.ca
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Media Release
Friends of Halifax Common Challenge Sale of Common Land
Posted 11-21-08
Friends of Halifax Common (FHC) are calling on the provincial government to stop the sale of 5.5 acres of Halifax Common land at the former Queen Elizabeth High School (QEHS). The QEHS land is included in a land swap between HRM and the province. FHC says this a bad deal. HRM will lose public open green space, pay $1.9 million for the land swap but will acquire half as much as land as the province.
All the traded land will be for two "Flagship Developments" purportedly to create a livable, prosperous, vibrant, attractive urban and legislative precinct."
"What's wrong with the Halifax Common being the Flagship Un-development?" asks FHC co-chair Peggy Cameron. "Isn't supporting public parks and open green space, places to walk a dog, throw a Frisbee, go for a run, or plant a garden just as important for creating a healthy, vibrant, livable city as building more buildings?"
"What's at stake is the park used by many Halifax residents who live in apartments and are students, young families or seniors with low incomes," said Cameron, noting that the skate park and only children's play ground on the North Common are directly opposite the ambulance driveway to the new hospital emergency entrance.
By ignoring the 1994 Halifax Common Plan's instruction to retain all land in the Halifax Common including the QEHS, Council continues to whittle away at the public area bounded by Cunard, South, Robie and North and South Park streets. Less than one-third of the original 235 acres of the Halifax Common remain.
"Where is the overall vision for how the city could be look? That scale of landmark is like New York's Central Park," FHC co-chair Beverly Miller explains. "Imagine the uproar in Manhattan if the City gave away 5.5 acres for a building."
HRM's staff report promises lots of green setbacks and walkways, but based on similar pledges when part of Tower Road was given to the VG hospital, the city's track record on such promises is poor.
"It's incredible that after Chebucto Road, that HRM is 'easing traffic circulation' by widening Bell Road 38 feet," said Laena Garrison, Ecology Action Centre's transportation expert. "The proposed bike lane's location, on an ambulance route along a busy thoroughfare through a large intersection, is questionable in terms of safety" stated Garrison.
HRM needs the provincial government to pass Bill 204 to sell the Common. Presenters before Law Amendment's Committee suggested the government help protect the Common by leasing the new emergency site to Capital Health but keeping the rest of the QEHS lot as green, open, and Common.
The British medical journal The Lancet recently reported that green space reduces the "health gap" between rich and poor http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7714950.stm The Regional Plan wants 15,000 - 20,000 more residents on the peninsula by 2025 without any plan for additional open space.
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For more information contact:
Peggy Cameron, FHC co-chair and Executive: 902-492-4372
Beverly Miller, FHC co-chair and Executive: 902-429-9540
SELLING THE COMMON!
Posted 11-19-08
HRM Council is going to sell the Queen Elizabeth High School site, Halifax Common land. This is to facilitate Flagship Developments on Spring Garden Road & Queen (the new public library) and the Grand Parade & Province House.
The Halifax Common Plan is very specific about the amount of city-owned land in the Halifax Common not being decreased (3.1). The Plan recommends preserving public open space for a variety of outdoor recreation and leisure activities or other suitable public uses.
It specifically mentions the Queen Elizabeth High School as being an example of a property to be returned to the city when it is declared surplus by the School Board. At 5.5 acres it is the largest parcel of land that could revert to public open green space.
Friends of the Halifax Common believes the newly constructed Halifax Infirmary Emergency site (which happened without due process) could be leased to the province BUT the balance of the Queen Elizabeth High School lands should become public open green space.
Details on what the city is proposing can be found at:
http://www.halifax.ca/council/agendasc/documents/081118cow5.pdf
What’s wrong with the HRM staff report:
HRM Council has "flagship development" projects slated for Spring Garden Road /Queen Street and Grand Parade / Province House.
These projects “balance future land use objectives with the goal of creating a liveable, prosperous, vibrant, attractive urban and legislative precinct respectively”. This will be facilitated through a land sale, including Halifax Common land- the 5.5 acres from the former Queen Elizabeth High School.
FHC SAYS: Why can’t the Halifax Common be HRM’s flagship undevelopment?
The Halifax Common creates a “liveable, prosperous, vibrant, attractive urban precinct” – why wreck it?
There will always be a reason to give away the Common. Imagine New York allowing 5.5 acres of Central Park to be sold for a building.
The Real Cost?
HRM is trading 269,994 ft2 for the province's 131,330 ft2
It’s getting half as much land (137, 664 ft2 difference) but its still paying the province $1.9 million.
FHC SAYS: Is this good dollar value?
Would a farmer make this decision about a piece of land?
From the HRM Staff report:
Amount of land being transferred to the Province in ft2
255,742 + 13252 = 268,994
Amount of land being transferred to HRM:
47,040 + 84290 = 131,330
Public Green Space:
All of the lands traded will be used for buildings. There is no net gain in public open green space.
FHC SAYS: It is projected that the peninsula population will be increased by 15,000 to 20,000 by 2020. Build a building on Common land and we lose that land for another 100 years.
Traffic:
A lot of details on what HRM is proposing for land use are about traffic:
widening Bell Road 38 feet to four lanes- to ease the flow of cars, buses, emergency vehicles and no kidding cyclists!;
new building design by the captial district health has to leave space to accommodate future traffic and intersection improvements at Robie and Bell Road and Bell Road at Trollope (a rotary anyone?)
FHC SAYS: Widening roads doesn’t work & is not sustainable.
It’s like going on a diet by loosening your belt – that’s not sustainable prosperity!
Health Care:
HRM staff cite CBC radio interviews as their source for evidence that the VG site is in bad conditions. They don't cite the Dal Surgery 2007 report which gives many examples of how efficiencies could be improved within the existing infrastructure:
- completing the 6th floor of the Dartmouth General;
- increasing long-term care bed numbers,
- using efficiencies within the region etc.
The report mentions… " with changing demographics, additional hospital capacity/beds is expected"
…"health care is a major economic contributor to HRM, the province and to peninsula Halifax and expansion at the QEII complex would add 2000-3000 staff"
FHC SAYS: Why would the city (and province) supporting a model that promotes illness as an economic driver rather than wellness?
Why isn’t Capital Health building up- increasing density, instead of out?
Are all Nova Scotians going to receive health care in Halifax?
Health Benefits from Public Green Space:
There is lots of evidence that even small parks in the heart of our cities can protect us from strokes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stress and perhaps even promote faster healing after surgery.These benefits are also linked to reducing the "health gap" between rich and poor. A recent report in the British medical journal The Lancet (there are many others!) determined Green Space reduces the "health gap" between rich and poor.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/health/7714950.stm
FHC SAYS: Not everyone has a cottage or an out of town vacation. Public open space is free!
Many of Halifax residents live in apartments and don’t own cars, are seniors or students and live on fixed incomes.
Bill 204
In order to be able to SELL the Common, HRM requires an Act of the Legislature, Bill 204.
An Act to Enable the Transfer of Lands Necessary for the Expansion of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre
At Law Amendments FHC stated:
The Act to enable the selling of part of the Halifax Common does not respect the 1763 vision of King George III nor the 1994 vision of citizens and Halifax city staff who developed the Halifax Common Plan.