This is a brief update on the Nova Centre street closures.

There has been a lot of concern about the lengthy street closures and the devastating impact these closures are having on the small businesses that operate next to the construction site. I share these concerns and have spent the better part of the day working to move this along and find ways to help these businesses.

The good news is that the developer has confirmed that Prince should be paved Saturday night or Sunday, and that Market should be paved 4-5 days later, Thursday or Friday next week. This will mean the closure will be far less than the 3 weeks that was originally anticipated for Market. There may be a bit of shift in these dates as there often is with any construction project, but I expect it should be done on this timeline.

I continue to be disappointed that the report from municipal staff on construction mitigation has not been brought back to the standing committee for debate. I believe staff are going to bring a good report, but we have to get it done and make sure we have policies in place by next summer.

I will be bringing a motion to Council on Tuesday directing staff to complete the report no later than January 26th Standing Committee meeting. I will also be asking for a separate staff report regarding payments for ‘injurious affection’ and other forms of compensation for businesses affected by longer term closures of streets in front of their operations. Apparently this was done back before amalgamation by the old city of Halifax, so I am going to find out more about what we can and can’t do now.

I would like to thank the CFIB, Andrea at Inkwell Boutique, Lil at Wooden Monkey, Applehead Studios for not letting this go and making this an issue.

You are right to demand better and I will keep do the work to make sure Halifax does better for you in the future.