Its HRM Election Time – FHC has Six Questions to Help You Choose the Best Candidate!

Vote for Our Common Good – Keep It Ours!
HRM’s election is ramping up.

FHC has six questions for you to ask candidates to help you make the best choice to protect the Halifax Common. FHC’s candidate survey has the same questions.

It’s important that electoral candidates hear Common concerns from many voices! So ask away…
(See HRM election info here)
 We’ll let you know our results soon.

Questions to ask Mayor & district council candidates:

1. Legal Protection:

Do you commit to working with the NS government to legally protect the integrity of the 240 acre Halifax Common?

Note: Provincial legislation protects the Dartmouth Common. Halifax needs the same rules.

2. Wanderers Stadium:


Do you support spending $40million of our public money for a permanent soccer stadium on the Halifax Common’s Wanderers Field for a for-profit soccer business? Note: Before Derek Martin and his professional team occupied the Wanderers Field with his ‘temporary, pop-up stadium’, it was used to full capacity by amateur players. Now, no amateur teams have regular access to the Field. HRM needs money for housing, public transportation, water, sewage and roads. Multiple studies show public investment in stadiums has no economic benefit. 

3. Halifax Common Master Plan:

The new Plan says there’s a role for community stakeholders. Will you work to establish a diverse stewardship committee that includes members of existing Friends’ groups to oversee the city’s parks and green spaces, including the Halifax Common?

Note: Point Pleasant Park has such a citizen advisory group.

4. Discord between HRM and Nova Scotia governments.

What suggestions or strategies do you have for improving relations between the Nova Scotia and HRM governments to work more collaboratively on issues of concern to both, especially to improve the lives of residents. 


5. Cogswell Triangle:

HRM persistently ignores promises to protect, recapture or replace lost Halifax Common. It even wants to close sell Centennial Pool. Instead imagine if the Cogswell Triangle (Cogswell, North Park, Gottingen, Rainne Drive) had Centennial Pool alongside a new Mi’kmaw Friendship Centre surrounded by public green space? Ask candidates if they support keeping Centennial Pool and converting the remaining public land to green space.

Note: See this Chronicle Herald story on HRM’s Plan for their next big public land sell off.

6. Your Question(s) here:

With concerns such as  affordable housing, public transportation, protecting urban trees, developer campaign contributions, we know you might have more than one.

Be sure to let us know who has the best answers. 

FHC AGM – Trees Aren’t Just Pretty Things to Look At. How can we protect them?

“trees aren’t just ‘pretty things to look at” a nice short film by Uytae Lee about our urban forest https://shorturl.at/choDH


Please join Friends of Halifax Common for our AGM
Hear guest speaker Jamie Simpson present on
The Law of the Urban Forest – How Cities Can Protect Trees By Law
Date: Tuesday, October 8th, 2024
Time:  6:30 – 8:45 
Place: Halifax  Central Library, Room 301, Spring Garden Road
 

Halifax is known as the ‘City of Trees’ but FHC is worrying for how long. Dozens of Halifax Common trees (Bell Rd, Robie St, University Ave) and throughout the city are being cut. Governments, both municipal and provincial, plan these tree cuts as if trees can just be replaced. FHC believes the best way to keep the beauty, envionmental and health benefits of our urban trees is to protect and care for them, by law. Jamie Simpson’s presentation will help us learn what other cities are doing to preserve and manage their urban trees. Jamie’s experience is as a lawyer, forester, and writer (three books), most recently writing forest stewardship plans for the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia – all with a passion for exploring our natural world (and sometimes eating it). He’s the ideal person to help bring many threads together. What better way to understand what we can do to make comments to HRM Staff and Council about our keeping our Common trees?
We also want to give you an update on FHC and then hear your questions and concerns.
Many of us feel helpless these days. Being active and engaged is a good countermeasure. Please plan to attend, hear ideas, join the discussions and have your say.

Amend the Centre Plan, Protect Halifax Trees! Public Hearing, May 21

Halifax planning is killing urban trees. Cutting trees for the QEII hospital is part of a bigger problem. The Centre Plan reduced public open space requirements and increased lot coverage for development threatening trees & green space. And its Robie Street Transportation Corridor will cut ~ 80 trees to widen the street. See: https://shorturl.at/tCDHU

Robie Street Transportation Corridor will cut ~ 80 trees to widen the street and demolish dozens of buildings. Take a detailed look here: https://shorturl.at/tCDHU

But here’s how we can change this ! Continue reading →

April 15 – FHC Follow Up Letter to Parks Canada re Garrison Ground

Thanks very much to Parks Canada for the meeting about the provincial government request for parking on the Garrison Ground. Despite sufficient lead time the QEII hospital redevelopment team is intent on ignoring the health, social, cultural, economic value of protecting and expanding green space. It’s time to pursue available, proven better options for staff and patient transportation. This must not include paving the Halifax Citadel National Park’s Garrison Grounds for parking.
Details here: 2024 FHC April letter to Parks Canada copy.pages

NS Health’s proposed parking lot paving project on the Garrison Ground at Parks Canada’s Halifax Citadel National Historic Site

Continue reading →

Trees at Willow Tree intersection - soon to be cut down

Shame – Premier Houston & Mayor Savage Ignore ~3,400 Citizens & CUT 20 Robie & Bell Road Trees!

When FHC heard Premier Houston’s provincial government wanted Mayor Savage and HRM’s permission to cut 37 trees on Robie, Bell Road & Summer for the QEII hospital expansion, we knew there was a better option — take the building back from the edge so the tree roots were safe. Together our collective effort reduced the number of cuts to ~20. But HRM issued permits and cut ~20 trees despite opposition from ~3,400 citizens. In a climate crisis and knowing the importance of trees to our city and personal health, governments & builders must do better. Trees and Healthcare need to co-exist. Shame.
Up next? Premier Houston’s Health & Wellness wants Parks Canada to pave green space on the Halifax Citadel National Park’s Garrison Grounds for hospital parking.  Why is the Premier and his Minister of of Health determined to wreck Halifax’s public realm for the QEII hospital expansion? Shame.

Trees at Willow Tree intersection - soon to be cut down

Photo: Several of the 20 trees along Robie St. & Bell Rd. that  Premier Houston and Mayor Savage allowed to be cut down to expand the QEII Hospital complex.

See below for Our Actions to Help Protect Our Trees!

Continue reading →

Write to Parks Canada “Don’t Pave National Park Green Space for Parking”

(Ki’jupuk) Nova Scotia Health and Parks Canada intend to pave green space on the Garrison Grounds for healthcare parking. This public green space on the Citadel National Park is historically used for gathering, playing, music, and all forms of enjoyment.

Please read details in the CBC article below, then send your comments/concerns/no ways!! to the following by April 24th.

Parks Canada: halifax@pc.gc.ca
Minister of Environment: Steven.Guilbeault@parl.gc.ca
Federal MP: andy.fillmore@parl.gc.ca

CBC ARTICLE:
Nova Scotia Health’s proposed paving over grass for a parking lot on the Garrison Grounds at Parks Canada’s Halifax Citadel National Historic Site

“A new lot with 140 stalls could ease the upcoming loss of a nearby parkade”, says the provincial Crown corporation. The area marked in yellow is currently a grassy space at the base of Halifax’s Citadel Hill. Build Nova Scotia, a provincial Crown corporation, wants it to be paved to create 140 additional parking stalls for health-care workers who will be losing a parkade on Robie Street later this year. (Submitted by Parks Canada)

NS Health’s proposed parking lot paving project on the Garrison Grounds at Parks Canada’s Halifax Citadel National Historic Site

A new parking lot at the base of Citadel Hill is on the table as the Province prepares to demolish a nearby parkade for a major hospital redevelopment project.

Crown corporation Build Nova Scotia wants to put 140 new parking spots on the Garrison Grounds at the southwest corner of the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site.

The open lot would partly make up for the loss of the Robie Street parkade at the Halifax Infirmary. That parking structure, which has over 600 spaces, is marked for demolition to make way for the redevelopment of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre.

Continue reading →