by Antonia Zwissler
On Friday, Oct 3., the province of Nova Scotia began backpedalling from its whoops of rejecting Halifax’s central planning document, by invoking a rule that overrides the city’s plan.
By rejecting the city’s plan in June the province also “rejected parts that they actually wanted, so that was the whoops,” said District 12 councillor Janet Steele. The province was “cutting off its nose to spite its face.”
The province had given Halifax planning requirements to include in the regional plan, to implement by June 30. Under HRM’s charter, if HRM doesn’t obey, the province’s next step is to make HRM change its strategy to align with “the provincial interest.”
Eleven days before the June 30 deadline, the city’s regional plan was released, which included the provincial requirements.
The city’s central plan complied with provincial rules and helped HRM meet some of its own goals, like protecting ecosystems within 30 metres of a watercourse. Provincial minister of municipal affairs John Lohr didn’t like that detail, and some others, so on Friday, August 8, he threw out the whole plan, even though it was within his power to cherry-pick and reject just the parts he didn’t like, like the extra 10 metres of coastal protection. Without cherry picking, Lohr’s wholesale rejection teleported Halifax back to its 2014 regional plan.
During the two months between the Oct. 3 backpedal and the August rejection of the plan, Lohr must have realized that forcing the city back into its 2014 regional plan meant the city couldn’t meet the provincial planning requirements set by the province in 2019.
On Oct. 3, Lohr tried to drag the city back to 2025 by designating the entire Halifax Regional Municipality as an “interim planning area.” The interim planning overrides the out-of-date, provincially re-enacted 2014 regional plan Lohr imposed on the city back in June. It’s an odd choice because it’s a tool that’s meant to deal with municipalities not meeting the province’s minimum planning requirements, which HRM did. Whoops.
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