WTG Info sheet on proposal to demolish 7 mixed-use small-scale historic buildings and build an 8-storey apartment block at the NW corner of the Halifax Common- in the Cunard/ Robie/Compton neighbourhood.

What:  Please attend HRM’s Public meeting to give feedback on the proposed Tony’s Pizza development.

When: Wed. Oct. 11th, 7 pm

Where: Halifax Forum (Maritime Hall)

Can’t attend? Please write the clerks@halifax.ca about Case 20577

Details: Abe Salloum (owner of Tony’s Pizza) wants to demolish 7 buildings on Cunard St, Robie St, & Compton Ave. and erect an 8-storey apartment block with its parking garage in the Compton neighbourhood. The proposed block-buster building is not permitted. Because its height, density, multi-unit use, and commercial use (the same as The Keep, under construction at Quinpool/Vernon) aren’t allowed he and architect WM Fares want city hall to change the rules to match his building using a planning loop-hole.

Why aren’t democratic planning regulations respected? If developers believed that rules mattered, they’d take care of properties they own not buy buildings to eventually tear them down and convert them to bigger-private-profit-makers. Instead Mayor and Council leave all neighbourhoods vulnerable to developer greed as they fudge planning rules.

This isn’t about being a NIMBY or anti-development. Halifax’s best economic advantage is its diverse, older, smaller, character neighbourhoods. Nor is it about densifying the Peninsula, The city has an abundance of vacant land- just consider the acres and acres of car dealerships as one example. We do not need to destroy to accommodate density.

Finally, HRM is beginning to work on the long promised 1994 Halifax Common Plan. It intends that these very treed streetscapes on the edges of the Halifax Common be preserved so the experience of being on the Common feels expansive with green space and blue sky. The North Common is the last remaining public open greenspace on the Halifax Common. No developer should be permitted to block the western sky, flood a busy walking route with more cars and degrade the Common’s character.

At the public meeting tell HRM to stop trying to plop obese uninteresting glass boxes into small-scale neighbourhoods. Tell HRM to create incentives to build on empty land, not demolish what we have. This proposal has no ground to proceed on or under.

Let others know- please pass on or print the Willow Tree Group info sheet.