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WAYE MASON

Many Halifax residents have contacted me wondering what is happening around the Natural History Museum between Bell Road and Summer Street.

I wish I could tell you, but I don’t really know, or rather, I don’t know the details. We’ve all heard the province has a plan to build a temporary parking lot on the triangle of land to the north, and a plan to build a parking garage to the south, between the Wanderers Grounds, Bengal Lancers site and the museum.

I have also learned that the province intends to build a new steam-heat plant on the triangle north of the Museum of Natural History, in effect intensely developing significant swaths of the green space that make up the Central Common.

This proposal to grow the hospital site at the expense of the historic Halifax Common is at odds with the province’s own hospital plan.

The publicly available plan for the new QEII complex was developed after some public engagement and is available on the Nova Scotia Health Authority website. It shows all the parking the QEII sites need can be accommodated on the Halifax Infirmary and Victoria General sites without sprawling into one of Halifax’s most important parks.

I approached Labi Kousoulis, the area MLA, and asked why these changes were proposed. I was told that moving the parking above ground would save $100 million. That number that seems unreasonably high to me, given the massive potential for higher, denser development, especially on the Robie Street side of the existing site, especially on the corner where the Queen Elizabeth High School once sat.

Staff in the premier’s office have told me that they need to build the garage on the Common to ensure 2,700 parking spots are available, but what has changed since the April 2018 plan that proposed 2,994 parking spots on the existing hospital lands without expanding onto the Common?

One source in government told me they cannot build tall buildings on the site because of the helicopter landing pad on the current hospital. There are many potential solutions to that engineering problem that can be addressed on the site.

I’ve been told repeatedly that the plan is online for all to see, but when you look at the QEII New Generation website, none of these new proposals are there. What this tells us is that significant changes have been made to this plan without further consultation with the public or the municipality.

From a municipal point of view, a lot of resources and the public’s time have been invested in creating the Regional Plan, Centre Plan, 1994 Common Plan and draft 2020 Common Plan, which all talk about the need to maintain green space.

Even when we’ve had to build on the Common, the province and municipal government have made sure that institutional buildings like Citadel High, the Oval building and the museum were set well back from streets in large, green, treed lawns that helped maintain the park-like feel of the entire district.

Based on Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal Minister Lloyd Hines’ press conference on Oct. 31, when he announced the parking garage project, not only will the province require HRM to sell the province Common park land, but the rendering shows the parking garage right up almost to the sidewalk. None of this is supported through current municipal policy and will only damage the Common.

There is a huge risk here. Rushing a project of this magnitude with last-minute changes made behind closed doors with a tight timeline and proceeding without further consultation, partnership, and respect for existing agreements and planning policy, all creates risk.

There may be good reasons why there are alternatives, but we don’t know, because these decisions are being made behind closed doors, rather than via continuing engagement with the community. This plan is being presented one project at a time, so the public does not know the full impact this will have, nor the reasons for it, nor the cost. Why has there been no further opportunity to educate or listen to the community?

I call upon the premier and our local MLA to support a pause, to make the entire current QEII plan public, to engage with the community, and to present to Halifax regional council in a public session. Halifax could partner with the province to leverage our experience, connections and contacts from the Centre and Common engagement process to ensure all the community voices are heard to find better solutions.

We need the province to be good neighbours, to the municipality, its citizens and adjacent park users.

By working together, we can find a path that makes important, needed changes in health-care delivery without damaging the critically important green space at the heart of the city. I look forward to working with provincial officials on this, and I encourage all Halifax residents to reach out to their MLA with their concerns.

Waye Mason is the councillor for District 7 (Halifax South Downtown).