Council Update: Wanderers Proposal, Victoria Road, Horizon Court

Agenda, September 15

Wanderers Proposal
The major item before Council that grabbed all the headlines was a proposal from Derek Martin, owner of the Halifax Wanderers, to build a permanent stadium on the Wanderers Grounds in Halifax and redevelop the soccer fields behind Crichton Park Elementary in Dartmouth into the club’s main training and organizational hub.

The permanent stadium would be built over one level of parking and would have artificial turf, allowing for greatly expanded programming and concerts. The Crichton Park proposal would see a two-level building constructed between the two existing soccer fields, built into the side of the hill. One soccer field would be restored from its current subpar condition and receive a winter dome, while the other would become a flag football field and parking lot. It’s a very ambitious pitch.

In my time on Council, I was a major skeptic of the CFL stadium proposal. The Schooners plan was deeply flawed in two important ways.

1. The Schooner proposal was for a stadium in a location that is considerably removed from existing hotels, restaurant and transit. What has become widely understood over the last few decades is that building stadiums out on the edge of town is a flawed approach. To get the most out of existing infrastructure and to create the best atmosphere, major facilities like this should be in the core of the city. The Schooner pitch largely missed the mark on good planning.
2. The Schooner’s wanted HRM to put up substantial dollars (money that we don’t have!) and assume a lot of risk. Sharing the risk was doubly problematic for HRM given the CFL, although there are fans in the Maritimes, is really untested in our market. If the team folded, HRM would be on the hook for an overbuilt stadium with no tenant or any real prospects. It would be a big gamble!

As a result, I couldn’t support the Schooner pitch and was relieved that it died on the vine. What the Wanderers are proposing, is pretty much, the direct opposite. Where the Schooners wanted a major financial contribution from HRM, the Wanderers are proposing to spend more than $90 million to build the stadium themselves. The only municipal dollar request is for HRM to relocate a water and sewer line that crosses the Wanderers Grounds. That is a very different proposal and is about the best stadium offer any municipality could reasonably expect.

The real ask that is being made of HRM is for a long-term lease of public land. That land has value and is something that we need to think about carefully. The Wanderers block has other uses including the Halifax Lancers, the Halifax Lawn Bowling Club, HRM’s horticultural greenhouse, and the HRM youth centre at the corner of Sackville and Bell Road. There is some juggling to be done given that there isn’t unlimited land, and there is lots going on here. It’s important for HRM to do its own due diligence to understand how the Wanderer’s proposal would impact these other uses.

There are also concerns to be had about the privatization of public spaces. The key here will be ensuring that the public truly benefits from a deal with the Wanderers. The Wanderers have indicated that the fields at both the Wanderers Grounds and Crichton Park would be upgraded, with bookings for recreational use managed by HRM. Converting the Wanderers Grounds to artificial turf could open up considerably more community programming than is possible now and an upgraded field with a winter dome at Crichton Park could do the same. HRM could end up with substantially more bookable recreation time for community groups than we have today and more, given HRM’s financial realities, than we could potentially build on our own.

This is a compelling pitch, the kind most city’s would be thrilled to have. There are a lot of details to go over though. My biggest concern from Martin’s presentation is the proposed timeline envisions construction starting in January. This is incredibly aggressive and, to be frank, its probably not realistic. I get that Martin wants to get moving and I hope that his aggressive timeline is more about creating urgency rather than an absolute requirement. It’s fashionable to dunk on government for being slow and at times we deserve it, but it’s also true that this is a very complicated proposal involving public land with a lot of other stakeholders and potential impacts. HRM has a duty to properly assess the proposal, and make sure it’s in the best interest of the public. We need to look before we leap.

I wanted to take a moment to drill down a bit on Crichton Park since that’s a very District 5 specific impact. The Wanderers appear to have done their homework in terms of engaging with user groups at the fields (all youth soccer, and one of the groups is already affiliated with the Wanderers). The fields aren’t in great condition and don’t have a lot of booked time, so there doesn’t appear to be any issue with displacing existing bookings.

My key concern that I will need to get more information on is what happens to informal use. The Crichton fields aren’t like the Wanderers Grounds. They’re readily available for anyone to wander across and use when the space isn’t booked. They’re essentially part of the grounds of Crichton Elementary. If this proposal goes ahead, can the kids use either the flag football or soccer field at lunch? What about the surrounding neighbourhood? Does all of this space end up locked off and unavailable when it isn’t in use? What about more formal usage? Will the school be able to access the fields for gym classes? Knowing more about the pros and cons here is important.

One piece of feedback I have already provided to HRM staff to consider is the idea that we should make an alternative proposal around parking. Rather than lose half of one of the Crichton fields to parking, why not make use of the existing worn-out parking lot at Maybank? The Maybank parking lot is 130 metres away from where Martin is proposing to build the Wanderers building, which is the equivalent of leaving your car in the back third of the parking lot when shopping at IKEA. The Wanderers would likely need a loading/drop-off area out front, but it seems to me that this is very much a walkable distance. Pushing parking to Maybank would mean we could hold onto the other half of the field at Crichton for formal or informal use and also fix the Maybank parking lot at the same time. There might be some impact on the Maybank park-and-ride to consider, but that’s just 50 potential park-and-ride spots. It’s not a huge transit facility, and it might be something HRM could relocate if the two uses can’t co-exist.

Lots of work to do and details to iron out, but I’m cautiously optimistic. This may be the best stadium offer that HRM, or any city, could reasonably expect to get. Council approved a motion from Councillor Mancini to get a staff report on the proposal 16-1 (Councillor Cuttell dissenting)

Victoria Road Redesign
I put forward a motion requesting a staff report into a potential redesign of Victoria Road from Highfield Park Drive to Albro Lake Road.

This section of Victoria is not like the rest of the street. It’s extremely wide, and a lot of the side streets don’t connect to it. It’s a stretch that is designed to be a highway rather than a city street. How did that happen? Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the City of Dartmouth planned to convert all of Victoria Road into an expressway that would connect up to the Macdonald Bridge and Prince Albert Road and Pleasant Street. This would have required buying up and tearing down a lot of houses and even moving graves in cemeteries. It would have been incredibly expensive, and politically divisive and so, even though the plans were drafted, the project never got out from under the crushing weight of reality. Dartmouth didn’t have the money or will to destroy itself! The Victoria Road expressway was never built, except for one section: Highfield to Albro. This section of road was the edge of town back in 1970 and was designed and built to fit the expressway vision. The result is we have our own Cogswell situation in Dartmouth North: an overbuilt piece of road that was meant to a connect to an expressway that doesn’t exist.

So what do we do with all of that? Over the years, there have been complaints from the neighbourhood about excessive speeds and pedestrian safety on this section of Victoria. I think the impact though runs beyond those obvious issues: this section of Victoria divides the community in two. It doesn’t have to be this way.

My expectation is that narrowing Victoria at Highfield Park Drive instead of Albro Lake Road won’t make any difference to traffic flow. Victoria Road could be 10 lanes wide through here, it would still meet the same two lane chokepoint at Albro Lake Road. That’s what defines the road’s capacity. If that’s the case, then why not move the choke point to a spot that is less damaging to the community? There could be room to prioritize transit and active transportation, create new public space, reconnect the disconnected street grid, and even potentially recoup some or all of the costs by selling off reclaimed land for development. This stretch was built for a nightmarish vision that thankfully never came to pass, but that mistake from yesterday is today’s opportunity.

Council approved my motion unanimously.

Horizon Court
Council initiated a planning process to amend the Regional Centre Municipal Plan (Centre Plan) to rezone Can-Euro’s property at the corner of Horizon Court and Micmac Boulevard to Future Growth Node and add the property to the Micmac Mall (M District) node. The back story on this project is a long one.

Back in 2012, Harbour East Community Council approved a 27 storey building on this property. Harbour East’s approval was challenged by the neighbouring property owner, Dexel, who owns Avonhurst Apartments and it took a year for those legal proceedings to conclude. Then Can-Euro’s founder, Otto Gaspar, died which meant several years to resolve his complicated estate. The Centre Plan came in in 2019, which limited the number of renewals of the existing development agreement. Covid created further complications for a business that is basically a family run company based in Germany. Up against the clock, Can-Euro started construction by getting a lot grading permit, but wasn’t able to get the footings for the new building in place before the development agreement’s July, 2024 deadline. When Can-Euro then applied for a building permit, HRM had to refuse since the agreement had expired and the project came to a halt with just a hole in the ground (aka Lake Horizon). Can-Euro had two options to move forward:

1. Redesign their project to fit the Centre Plan’s requirements or
2. Apply for a site specific set of rules to bring their original project back from the dead

Can-Euro opted for the second option and HRM staff have determined that the most logical way to do that would be to include Can-Euro’s property in the adjacent M-District growth node since growth nodes allow for site specific planning by development agreement.

Where there has been a long-standing expectation that this property would be developed into a high-rise residential building, the consultation on this proposal will be limited to an online project site. I will share a link to the site in my e-news when it’s posted. This will eventually come to Council for a public hearing.

Other:

• Added several names to the commemorative naming list, including Glen Bagnell (the intent is to name the Kiwanis Buildings at Grahams Grove after Glen Bagnell)
• Council requested a supplemental report on an offer to fund the installation of a tennis dome at Gorsebrook Park in Halifax
• Registered 2319 Maynard Street, Halifax as a heritage property
• Completed the street closure process for small bits of leftover land (the streets aren’t actually closing) for Sonny’s Way in Spryfield and Robert Burns Drive in Dartmouth so that the remainder land can be sold to the adjacent owners
• Approved a flypast for Remembrance Day ceremonies at Grand Parade
• Finalized changes to the User Fee Bylaw to allow for a transit fare increase in December when tap-to-pay is expected to be available
• Provided a three year deadline extension for the Beechville Community Development Association to purchase some surpluse municipal property
• Corrected a missed notice for the closure of Loriann Drive Park in Porters Lake with a Council motion, allowing these surplus lands to be sold in future
• Approved staff building in funding into the 2027/2028 budget for HRM’s hosting responsibilities for the 2027 Federation of Canadian Municipalities Conference
• Adopted revised terms of reference for the Active Transportation Advisory Committee
• Approved planned fall debt issuances for capital projects
• Approved the HRM Emergency Management Strategic Plan
• Formally accepted several non-accepted streets as municipal streets and classified several others as private roads
• Approved heritage, special events, and rural transit grants
• Requested a staff report on creating a municipal app to share planning notifications