The Tragedy of the Common – Coast Magazine

The Tragedy of the Common: If the Common is so common, why can’t common people decide how to use it?

The Coast Magazine, Opinion – Sustainable City, by Chris Benjamin

Tragedy-of-the-Common_THECOAST – PDF

from: https://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/tragedy-of-the common/Content?oid=1503404
“Picture a pasture open to all.” So wrote Garrett Hardin in his 1968 Science article, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” His thesis was that a shared natural resource, in self-interested human hands, could only be destroyed. It was a thought-provoking article that is still invoked to advocate and justify private ownership.

The history of our own Halifax Common at times veers toward destruction, but it has survived shared ownership by the people, either because or in spite of municipal government intervention. The Common was once a shared Hardinesque pasture. It has also been a campground, a dump and a race track twice—once for horses and once for cars. It used to be much bigger, but pavement, steel and glass ate the grass. Continue reading →

Article The Right to the Common – by Katie McKay

from: SPACING ATLANTICguach-ptg_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

Drawing Green Parallels – Chronicle Herald

Drawing Green Parallels
Commons supporters, climate change activists join forces to highlight need to protect nature
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE Staff Reporter, The Chronicle Herald

’Our vanishing Halifax Common(s) is a metaphor for the disappearance of our global Common, most urgently our atmosphere and climate’ SHEILAGH HUNT – Friends of the Halifax Common

Michael Stuttard takes a chalk along the South Common (Robie Street near Camphill Cemetery).

Michael Stuttard takes a chalk along the South Common (Robie Street near Camphill Cemetery).

Remnants of the original Halifax Commons are representative of the “disappearance of our global Common,” park lovers and climate change fighters say.

An event promoting today’s International Day of Climate Action and bemoaning the vanishing Halifax Commons was held Friday afternoon. Less than one-third of the Halifax Common’s original 95.1 hectares, granted in 1763 by King George III, is public open space, say Friends of the Halifax Common.

Members and supporters drew a line around the entire perimeter of the original Commons. Volunteers were supplied with chalk at various meeting points around the site.

“Our vanishing Halifax Common(s) is a metaphor for the disappearance of our global Common, most urgently our atmosphere and climate,”” said Friends member Sheila Hunt. Continue reading →

Take a Chalk Around the Common-International Day of Climate Action 350.org

Halifax- In support of 350.org, International Day of Climate Action, Friends of Halifax Common

Michael Stuttard takes a chalk along the South Common (Robie Street near Camphill Cemetery).

Michael Stuttard takes a chalk along the South Common (Robie Street near Camphill Cemetery).

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.”
Continue reading →

The Coast, Bruce Wark Editorial – Looking for Common Sense

E D I TO R I A L by Bruce Wark

Looking for Common sense
The land deal between the city & the province chips another piece off of the Halifax Commons
Rodney - Common Sense?I call it city council’s royal fuck-up. The Queen’s High School
is being traded to the Queen’s Hospital for a new central library on—where else—Queen Street. And we’re all worse off. The deal means another chunk of the Halifax Common is about to disappear. It’s all part of a land swap between city and province that council approved last week.
Believe it or not, the city is giving away 269,000 square feet of prime downtown land in return for 131,000 square feet of prime downtown land and paying nearly two million bucks for the privilege.

Under the deal, the province gets the former Birks site on Barrington to build more office space plus the Queen Elizabeth High site at Robie and Bell for expansion of the QE II Infirmary. In return, the city gets the block on Queen between Spring Garden and Morris for a central library, officespace, shops and housing.

Halifax Metro News – Hospital space trumps green space in Common decision

By Lindsay Jones

The Queen Elizabeth High School property is part of a land swap between the city and the province.

The Queen Elizabeth High School property is part of a land swap between the city and the province.

Regional council approved giving up the rest of the Queen Elizabeth High School land to become part of a hospital expansion yesterday.

The city is exchanging the former Halifax Common land, as well as several other parcels, with the province to help pay for land at the corner of Queen Street and Spring Garden Road. That’s the site where the city wants to build a new Central Library. Continue reading →

Media Release – Common for Sale?

Is the Halifax Common for Sale?

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.
Continue reading →

Chronicle Herald Op Ed – Protecting Halifax’s Common Ground

Money spent by HRM for private and expensive Concerts on the Common would be better spent on protecting the Common for everyone.

Public money spent by HRM for private, expensive Concerts on the Common would be better spent on protecting the Common for everyone.

Recently, Friends of Halifax Common were informed HRM will begin electrical repairs to the Centennial Fountain on the North Common. This was conveyed to us as a “good news” story. Indeed there hasn’t been much good news about the Common for a long time.

The Halifax Common, Canada’s oldest urban park, was created in 1763 when King George III granted 240 acres “for the use of the inhabitants of the Town of Halifax forever.” Originally extending between Cunard and South Streets, bounded by Robie on the west Continue reading →

Friends of Halifax Common Challenge Sale of Common Land – Media Release

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.
Continue reading →

Haligonians Reclaiming the Common

The Friends of the Halifax Common has engaged in a number of initiatives to try and raise interest in and support for ensuring the intent and spirit of the 1994 Halifax Common Plan is upheld.

This has included succeeding in having the 1994 Halifax Common Plan be available on HRM’s website in 2008.

Because most HRM Councillors are unfamiliar with the Halifax Common Plan, FHC asked to permission to do a presentation before the Council.

We were not granted this but we did make a presentation to the Community Council (Dawn Sloane, Sue Uteck, Sheila Fougere & Patrick Murphy) to inform them about the existence and principal mandate of the Friends of the Halifax Common. One outcome was that each Councillor was to receive a hard copy of the Halifax Common Plan 1994.

We also asked that Mayor Kelly and Council follow through on a promise made by Mayor Kelly to have a Halifax Common Task Force formed to ensure that there attention being paid to the Common and with public participation.

The Mayor has not kept this promise.