Save Young Avenue

A community based initiative to preserve the unique character and form of Young Avenue, named to National Trust’s top 10 Endangered Places in Canada,2017.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@HalifaxWater wondering about the extensive backhoe induced destruction of tree-roots happening along Roosevelt and adjacent streets, as curbs and roadways finally get reinstalled after a long spring, summer, and fall of disruptive pipeline replacement work. Rather brutal.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@WayeMason

[Jennifer Keesmaat @jen_keesmaat]

Here is an easy win for the Provincial government on housing: get the land flippers out of the development process. These folks make a tremendous amount of money leaning on staff and politicians to make changes to land use planning policy on the presumption that they will build housing.

But they have no intention of building housing. They walk away with pockets full of cash without building a thing.

Mr X said the quiet part out loud: “my developer clients don’t ever build anything.”

Since the government controls the permissions that generate this land value, which the flippers have turned into an entire industry that drives up the cost of land, there are two things that must happen concurrently to end this nefarious game:

1. up-zone as-of-right the areas where we do want housing/density - along corridors, on large sites, near transit stations, in urban centres across the region.

2. Make the process for up-zoning new housing that is not in these areas very very difficult, and require confirmation that the so-called developer will build the project, as a condition of approval, within a specific time frame.

These two things need to toggle. As-of-right permissions don’t mean much if developers are eyeing a greenfield and they think the Province isn’t serious about intensification. There needs to be more incentive to build; today the greater incentive is to rezone. But rezoning alone doesn’t get homes built.

https://t.co/6c2rze3Q6O

[Jennifer Keesmaat @jen_keesmaat]

Here is an easy win for the Provincial government on housing: get the land flippers out of the development process. These folks make a tremendous amount of money leaning on staff and politicians to make changes to land use planning policy on the presumption that they will build housing.

But they have no intention of building housing. They walk away with pockets full of cash without building a thing.

Mr X said the quiet part out loud: “my developer clients don’t ever build anything.”

Since the government controls the permissions that generate this land value, which the flippers have turned into an entire industry that drives up the cost of land, there are two things that must happen concurrently to end this nefarious game:

1. up-zone as-of-right the areas where we do want housing/density - along corridors, on large sites, near transit stations, in urban centres across the region.

2. Make the process for up-zoning new housing that is not in these areas very very difficult, and require confirmation that the so-called developer will build the project, as a condition of approval, within a specific time frame.

These two things need to toggle. As-of-right permissions don’t mean much if developers are eyeing a greenfield and they think the Province isn’t serious about intensification. There needs to be more incentive to build; today the greater incentive is to rezone. But rezoning alone doesn’t get homes built.

https://t.co/6c2rze3Q6O

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@jacobisonit I think you may mean Shirley St? It has an almost twin on Payzant.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@builtHFX Would be great to add a section on the development of Young Avenue, also part of the City Beautiful movement.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@Cove17 I wonder if the brickwork pattern was part of the original design/construction drawings, or was added on the initiative of the mason.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@Cove17 Yikes!

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@gabrielbmiller @scottedgar Or rather, a utilizeless term?

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

https://t.co/RIKSYyN7uE

[hfxplanning @hfxplanning]

Proposed Regional Centre Plan & Land Use By-law being presented to Community Design Advisory Committee & Heritage Advisory Committee today. The adoption process starts here. The agenda links to all the documents.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@WayeMason The format worked very well, Waye. Thank you for posting the link. And thank you for your very sage comments following the presentation by Kasia.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@Cove17 Looks like an Alex Colville painting!

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@Cove17 Do you mean the gates were once elsewhere, like across the street from where they are now? The photo suggests the pic was taken from the south, looking north, with the south westerly sun casting shadows. I think the gates were simply re-spaced wider apart, not moved.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

This can wait.

[Halifax Military Heritage @HfxMilitaryPres]

As mentioned on @infomorning today re Halifax Regional Municipality: Restore Fleming Cottage in Dingle Park - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/CQbNwMUuCj via @CdnChange. A worthy cause.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@HfxHeritage I wonder if any of the other buildings in the background still exist?

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@WayeMason @thesaltyfog @hfxplanning Site plan shows 29 parking spots, and 3 exits onto Yale (1 “exit only” for trucks, and 2 combined entrance/exits for two way traffic onto Yale). This can’t be good for residential Yale. Commercial creep.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

Vintage 1956-1966 MCM plywood Santa on a house of the same age on Young Avenue

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

Snoopy lives (sleeps?) on Young Avenue.

[Save Young Avenue @SaveYoungAvenue]

@theotherbeanhfx @WayeMason @halifaxbeard Yes, surreptitiously over the Labour day weekend 2016, no demolition permit in hand, racing to beat the Heritage Advisory Committee’s review of the mansion for heritage registration. No ramifications for the land speculator, except bad press.