DARTMOUTH, N.S.—Residents told their councillor he wouldn’t be re-elected, and worse, as he voted in favour of a controversial development at a public hearing Thursday night.

About 75 people turned out to the Mic Mac Canoe Club on Lake Banook for a meeting of the Harbour East Marine Drive Community Council, made up of five Halifax regional councillors who make development decisions for the Dartmouth side of the harbour.

The contentious item on the agenda was a public hearing for an eight-storey residential development fewer than 2 km away, at the corner of Prince Albert Rd. and Glenwood Ave.

Every one of the residents who spoke during the public hearing, 23 in total, was opposed to the development, including former Dartmouth Councillor Gloria McCluskey and Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission executive director Tim Rissesco.

The most common concern from speakers was that wind from the building would have a detrimental effect on the paddling course on Lake Banook, but residents also felt the building was too tall, too dense, would create too much traffic, and didn’t fit the neighbourhood.

The original proposal from the developer, Monaco Investments Partnership, was for a 15-storey building. The community council rejected that in 2012. The developer came back with a few different versions, each shrinking in height, till last year, when the community council considered a nine-storey version. The councillors voted after a public hearing to send the developer back to try to shave off another three floors.

The draft Centre Plan, the municipality’s yet-to-be-adopted planning bible for its urban areas, calls for a maximum height of 20 metres, or about six storeys, on the site.

The latest iteration is eight storeys, or 27 metres, in the front, coming down to seven for much of the structure and then down to four in the back section closer to single-family homes on Glenwood Ave.

The proposal is for a maximum of 90 residential units, a third of which have to have two or more bedrooms, and about 6,500 square feet of commercial space in the ground floor, along with underground parking.

The councillor for the area, Sam Austin, led the charge last year to ask the developer to bring the building down to six storeys.

But amid jeers from some of his constituents, he said Thursday night that one extra storey wasn’t worth rejecting the proposal.

“This is the moment where maybe I’m a better planner than a politician,” he said.

Austin, siding with municipal planning staff, said he didn’t think wind from the building was an issue for the paddling course.

A map developed by the municipality in 2005 sets a height limit around the lake to make sure wind doesn’t affect the course, and this property sits just outside the restricted border. A wind study conducted for the 15-storey version of the proposal showed no negative effects for the lake.

Austin said he thought it would be easier to do what everyone in the room was telling him to do, but he was satisfied with the proposal.

“The only pressure on me right now is to side with all you guys, but deep in my bones, I just can’t do it,” he said.

“You’re full of sh-,” one man said as Austin finished his comments. “Go f-- yourself.”

“Good luck getting elected,” said another.

Councillor Bill Karsten, who chaired the meeting, pleaded with the crowd to be respectful.

“We’re neighbours and friends,” he said. “We live in the same city.”

“It’s not a city,” someone yelled out.

Another person asked Karsten if he worked for the developer or he worked for the people.

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“Don’t even go there,” he said.

“Folks, there’s more to doing the job of making decisions on a public hearing than listening to the folks only in the room.”

Karsten was also the only person Thursday night to mention the fact that a much larger building was possible for the site without any kind of public engagement.

The site is comprised of two properties — one zoned general commercial and another zoned for high-density multi-family residential.

On the general commercial lot, currently a funeral home, there is no height limit on commercial uses, which are allowed to go ahead without public hearings.

“As of right, the developer of that property could build a 15-storey hotel,” Karsten reminded residents.

In fact, the developer could build a 16-storey hotel, and was well on its way to doing so.

“A development permit was issued on May 23, 2018 for a 16-storey hotel at 307 Prince Albert Road,” municipal spokesperson Nick Ritcey said in an email Thursday afternoon.

“A Building Permit is currently under review for the same property by Planning and Development. The Building Permit application would also be for a 16-storey hotel.”

Austin said in an interview after the vote that he knew about the development permit and the pending building permit, but that wasn’t the deciding factor for him.

“It’s in the back of your mind, as to what else can happen with the property, but for me it really came down to, this was a good planning decision,” he said.

“And as much as I’m a politician, I’m also a planner and I would’ve been cashing in a little chunk of my soul, honestly, to vote against it.”

Councillor Lorelei Nicoll was the only vote against the proposal, citing consistency with previous votes on Centre Plan height restrictions, like the Willow Tree development. Councillor Tony Mancini was unable to attend Thursday’s meeting.

One of three partners in Monaco Investments Partnership, Tony Maskine, had no comment after the vote, but said during the public hearing that, “Rejuvenation of this neighbourhood is not something that perhaps is unwarranted.”

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