Tag Archives: St Pat’s High School

Herald Counterpoint: St. Pat’s Site is Public Property

Published December 11, 2015
The St. Pat’s High School land belongs to the citizens. Unless citizens decide otherwise, that’s the way it should remain. But city staff, under direction from the Halifax mayor and council continue an invented process to sell off the site. Why are they so stoked about the sale? They made the decision to sell without asking the owners (you and me). And since then, the process

The state of demolition of the former St. Pat’s High School as of Dec. 4. (INGRID BULMER / Staff)

has been rushed, ill-informed and inadequate. The single goal is to predetermine the size and number of buildings the purchaser can profitably build. By proposing buildings with greater heights and densities than the existing Regional Municipal Plan, Land Use By-Laws and Quinpool Road Area Plans allow, the city has normalized the understanding that the upcoming Centre Plan will be precluded
Is there a compelling reason to sell off this
centrally located parcel of public land? Not according to a 2013 Stantec report commissioned by HRM. It determined there’s enough Continue reading →

St Pat’s Deadline & Bullshit At 6067 Quinpool Road Post

Friday, August 14 is the deadline for comments at Shape Your City/Manipulate The Citizens for the former St Pat’s High School at 6067 Quinpool Rd. The April 2014 decision to sell St Pat’s

Fake public process offers towers lost in space with Styrofoam trees.

Contrived public process offers towers lost in space with Styrofoam trees.

was made without any public consultation. Now more pretense at public consultation allows 20 days for comments on three prescribed proposals, The Square, The Grid, & The Plaza.
Bullshit At 6067 Quinpool Road is a great submission you will want to read. Maybe you’ll have questions for the Mayor & Council <clerks@halifax.ca> i.e. Why does it seem that a developer’s agenda not that of the public is being served? Or,
In the city’s rush to sell off St Pat’s what other ideas such as those of Sheilah Hunt, a former FHC director,Transform St. Pat’s site into Halifax’s cultural:artistic hub | The Chronicle Herald, are we missing out on?

FHC’s previous posts are here & here & here*

Continue reading →

Howard Epstein To Mayor Savage: Use Your Best Efforts

July 15, 2015
Mayor Mike Savage
PO Box 1749, Halifax, NS B3J 3A5

Your Worship:
I am writing on behalf of Friends of Halifax Common to set out an important concern about the state of play in overall land-use planning in the Capital/Regional Centre. Our focus is on the Halifax Common, but some of the issues that illustrate problems that affect the Common are also of wider impact and concern.

Originating with the 2006 Regional Plan, a focus on the Centre has been adopted by Council. Unfortunately this has suffered from delay. It is worthwhile to recall the reasons for this focus in the Regional Plan: stemming general residential sprawl (especially with associated energy use for transportation); controlling the cost of hard and soft infrastructure; and a concern with the hollowing-out of downtowns. These remain valid concerns. Delay has come about through several steps: first, HRM By Design abandoned its initial focus on the whole of the Centre area and dealt for several years exclusively with the Halifax CBD; next, a ‘corridors’ policy was attempted as an interim measure; and in the meantime, Council and the community councils have been dealing with many individual site applications, approving much of what has been asked for.

The result of this has been not only delay in settling on a new Centre plan, but in a series of decisions that effectively pre-determine the results of what should be an open public planning process. Very little will be left to be determined, especially on the Halifax peninsula, if important, individual site-based decisions continue to be made. Continue reading →

St Pat’s Background Report Inaccurate, Inadequate & Biased

HRM has posted a background report by WSP Canada Inc. about the former St. Patrick’s High School site (Quinpool 6067) in advance of Wendesday’s meeting. The three concept designs are not yet avalable. Errors and omissions in the report are detailed below. The report

St Pat’s Process Deeply Flawed (Photo-Rebecca Lau/Global News)

would be a very faulty basis for a public consultation and should be withdrawn and revised before the consultation starts.

The report is clearly biased towards a large scale development despite a 2013 Stantec Report commissioned by HRM determined that there is sufficient development capacity in the Regional Capital to meet density targets for the next 25 years. Presently there is equivalent to 20 empty blocks of land in the downtown, most used as parking lots and most with existing development agreements and yet the report does not consider retaining this land as public open space. Below is a list of the problems, followed by some discussion.

1. The report does not mention the existing height limit on the property.
2. The report has an inadequate discussion of the Quinpool Road Commercial Area Plan (QRCAP).
3. The densities on surrounding blocks are calculated incorrectly.
4. The wind consultants did not consider the effect of winds on Cogswell Park, between Windsor, Parker and Welsford Streets.
5. The report starts with a density that is twice as great as the density allowed in this part of Halifax.

Discussion:

The report does not mention the existing height limit on the property.

Continue reading →

St Pat’s High School Property – Public Meeting- Wed. Jul. 22

There’s a public open house to review and comment on three preliminary design options for St Pat’s High School on Wed., July 22, 6:30 – 9 p.m., Halifax Forum, Multi-Purpose Room

Why is the public meeting on such short notice and in the middle of vacation season?

Can’t make it?
Ask questions or make comments at: https://shapeyourcityhalifax.ca/quinpool6067.

Our questions? …..
1. Why is this very important public consultation meeting being scheduled on such short notice and in the middle of prime vacation time?

2. What is the urgency to sell and re-develop the St Pat’s high school site with such haste that a final design will be selected by September?

3. This area has many highrise developments being proposed -isn’t their approval and the approval for a St Pat’s project in advance of the Centre Plan precluding what the Centre Plan will be able to do?

4. Halifax has taken 21 years to begin the process of developing an integrated master plan for the Halifax Common. St Pat’s highschool is common land in that it belongs to the public. According to the 2013 Stantec Report commissioned by the city there is adequate land to meet all of our projected population growth for the next twenty years. Why doesn’t the city land bank the St Pat’s site as common land to compensate for the loss of over 200 acres of the Halifax Common’s public open space ?