Platform: Harbour Infilling, Building Code

During the campaign, I’m going into detail on various aspects of my platform on social media, Monday – Thursday. I know not everyone is on Facebook, Twitter or Linked-in so here’s a review to end off the week of what I shared.

Harbour Infilling:
My first daily platform entry! Harbour infilling has been an issue from the Northwest Arm to Bedford and recently in Dartmouth Cove. Dartmouth Cove is a special place. It’s beloved as one of the few places where you can be truly be alongside the water on the Dartmouth side. The potential that a large portion of the Cove could be infilled has raised deep concerns. That the infill proponents have no plan for what happens next, potentially leaving Dartmouth with a rocky moonscape on the waterfront just adds insult to injury.

I have brought multiple motions to Council around Dartmouth Cove and I was there to push back when the proponents went rogue and tried to interfere with the public’s right to use the Harbour Trail. Our waterfront needs a real plan, it doesn’t need to be someone’s dump site. HRM has initiated (1) a bylaw process to consider amendments that would limit infill and (2) a planning process for the Dartmouth waterfront.

If I’m re-elected, I will push to complete both. Dartmouth, we do great things together!

Building Code:
Today’s platform policy: Lobby the Province to amend the building code to allow for more missing middle housing.

HRM has reformed our zoning laws to allow for small scale multi-unit buildings, the so-called missing middle of housing supply. Small scale buildings are important because they can be built quickly, and by a wider variety of developers. Small apartment buildings are common across the world, but rare in Canada. Restrictive zoning is part of that, but so is the building code.

Our building code requires multiple stairways in buildings of more than 2 storeys, which makes small uneconomical. It’s build big or not at all. Here’s some rare examples of small-scale apartment buildings in Downtown Dartmouth around Pleasant Street and Prince Albert Road that almost no one would try to build today. It wouldn’t make financial sense.

Our code requirements are the strictest in the world and it’s not clear that we’re any safer. There are other ways to address fire safety such as wide/pressurized stairways, non-combustible materials, sprinklers etc. This video sums it up very well BC recently amended their building code to allow for single point entry buildings of up to 6 storeys and city’s like Seattle that have their own building codes have allowed single point entry buildings for decades. We should do the same

The Province controls the building code, but HRM has influence given that we’re responsible for firefighting and urban planning. We’re not a spectator, we’re a key stakeholder. Rather than passively waiting and hoping for change, we should actively build the case for it. We can increase the supply and diversity of housing with buildings that fit into existing neighbourhoods without compromising fire safety.

HRM staff are looking at this and if elected, I will push for HRM to lobby the Province to act. Dartmouth, we do great things together.

For some great additional content on building code and small-scale apartments check out these videos

Public Housing:
I also released a piece on why we should go back to 1995 and give HRM back the responsibility for building public housing, provided that the negotiations with the Province also include the funding to do the job well. That piece has its own detailed write up on my site here.