Author: Sam Austin

Dartmouth Crossing Residential: Before getting into Tuesday’s Council agenda, I wanted to spend a few minutes explaining a debate that we had on Thursday at Harbour East Community Council about residential development in Dartmouth Crossing. The developer of Dartmouth Crossing, North American Development Group, wants to construct two apartment buildings …

Budget: The most important bit of business that Council dealt with on Tuesday was the 2018/2019 budget. HRM’s budget is obviously more complex than a household’s, but some of the basic questions and decisions are the same: How much money is coming in and does that pay the bills? If …

A bit behind over the last few month on my council blogging. Catching up in this two-for-one that covers the April 10th and March 27th meetings. Convention Centre: Probably the biggest item in terms of public interest on April 10’s meeting was the Convention Centre. HRM and the Province are …

Willow Tree: The first half of Regional Council was all deferred business and included the return of the Willow Tree development at the corner of Quinpool and Robie. The motion on the floor from the January public hearing was whether to allow a 20 storey building on the property. During …

Implementing the Integrated Mobility Plan: The day at Regional Council was a big one for transportation, with both the South Park Street protected bike lane and the Gottingen Street bus lane up for consideration. The Regional Plan sets a goal of having 30% of trips in HRM made by walking, …

Budget 2018: For the last few months Council has been working through the 2018/2019 budget process and in our last Budget Committee we got our first look at the whole picture. The municipal budget is complicated in the details and impacts, but in a very basic way, it’s similar to how …