Tag Archives: 1994 Halifax Common Plan

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. 

HRM Adopts Piecemeal Halifax Common Master Plan – No Legal Protection

The Halifax Common Master Plan Review and Implementation Plan was adopted by HRM Council on January 23, 2024. In February 2022 HRM Council directed staff to undertake further public consultation and review as the masterplan process begun in 2017. The public had not seen the plan since pre Covid and had little awareness of it. HRM staff chose to not host any public information or consultation sessions but sought feed back via a Shape Your City on-line survey for 9 months.
The presentation to HRM Council by HRM staff Carol Kodiak Roberts begins at 4:37. Council comments begin with Waye Mason at 4:48. Most of the discussion is around the stadium. HRM Staff are awkward in their answers. Councillor Mancini is excited. Councillor Patty Cuttell gives the best insight to “All winners no losers,” (5:06) Continue reading →

FHC Writes to Ms. Maggie MacDonald, HRM Executive Director Parks & Recreation

FHC sent a letter to HRM’s Executive Director of Parks & Recreation Ms Maggie MacDonald to with information for her use in writing a staff report for the HRM Standing Committee on Community Planning and Economic Development about the Wanderers Grounds, particularly in the context of the proposal Mr. Derek Martin made for a long-term lease of a publicly funded stadium.

As the matter of the public funding stadiums is as yet untested in Halifax we recommend the Journal of Economic Surveys’ February 2022 article, The Impact of Professional Sports Franchises and Venues on Local Economies: A Comprehensive Survey. This recent analysis of 130 studies on the economic impact of publicly financed sports venue…

“…confirms the decades-old consensus of very limited economic impacts of professional sports teams and stadiums. Even with added non-pecuniary social benefits from quality-of-life externalities and civic pride, welfare improvements from hosting teams tend to fall well short of covering public outlays. Thus, the large subsidies commonly devoted to constructing professional sports venues are not justified as worthwhile public investments.”
(https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4022547)

Continue reading →

Todd Veinotte & FHC’s Howard Epstein re HRM’s Proposed $40m Stadium Build

Listen to Todd Veinotte’s interview with Howard Epstein about SEA/Derek Martin’s pitch for HRM to spend $40 million on a permanent stadium for his private use and profit for thirty years. 

Watch Derek Martin/SEA pitch to HRM Community Planning and Economic Development standing committee along with presentations by Howard Epstein starts at 13:03, David Bentley and Vince Calderhead here:

The Wanderers Grounds was fully used by amateur players prior ot HRM’s deal for a ‘temporary pop-up stadium’ – HRM’s 2017 staff report stated that if it was successful was to go elsewhere, no park space would be lost.

Todd Veinotte- Interview re Ron Pink’s letter to HRM on Privatization of Wanderers Grounds

In 2018 just before the start of public consultation for the Halifax Common Master Plan HRM signed a contract with a private, professional, for-profit soccer club for a temporary “pop-up” stadium on the Wanderers Grounds.  According to the 2017 HRM staff report, prior to this agreement amateur players of all ages and gender fully used the field for football, touch football, rugby, lacrosse, frisbee and soccer— an estimated 325 hours. (Even more had the field been maintained.) The report also states that if the club was successful they would have to move elsewhere-no park space would be lost. Public tax dollars paid for initial ~$1million dollars in field improvements, and since then for on-going maintenance and utilities. There has been little to no public access. And no public consultation. With thousands more residents moving to the Peninsula we need public open green space more than ever.

The Wanderers Grounds was fully used by amateur players like this QEHS football team (2015) before HRM paid hundreds of thousands for field upgrades, lights, scoreboard and on-going utility/maintenance for a professional private for-profit soccer team takeover of the public-land.

FHC Response to HRM’s ‘in principle’ Halifax Common Master Plan

We invite you to read these detailed comments on the ‘in principle’ Halifax Common Master Plan (the “Plan”) that FHC recently sent to HRM staff.  Collectively it took us thousands of hours. It is comprehensive and worth a look!  (There is a short summary below the map.)

Halifax Common with its boundaries between Robie, Cunard, Park and South Streets, as well as land leased to the Horticultural Society for the Public Gardens, area used for cricket grounds, area used for military exercising grounds, and the water-course from the Egg Pond to the Public Garden pond to Freshwater Brook (water features aren’t labelled).

Continue reading →