HRM sells north-end property despite objections
The sale of the Bloomfield Centre property in north-end Halifax is a done deal despite opposition that includes a petition with hundreds of signatures.
“In late July 2020, municipal staff accepted a conditional offer for the sale of the property, subject to council approval,” Mayor Mike Savage said Friday in an emailed response.
“Council approved the acceptance of the offer and contract agreements followed, part of the normal due diligence,” Savage said. “The closing of the transaction is currently in progress. The purchaser must still seek municipal development approval in accordance with the Centre Plan before anything is built on the site.”
The not-for-profit northend community group Imagine Bloomfield, which for two decades has been advocating that the 1.2-hectare property be transformed into a neighbourhood hub with spaces for arts, heritage, community services, education, recreation and sports, fired off a letter to the mayor and regional council on Tuesday.
“We are writing today to ask that HRM council reconsider the sale of the Bloomfield property,” reads the letter written by Imagine Bloomfield chairwoman Susanna Fuller.
“COVID-19 has shown us just how important community green space is for the health and well-being of urban communities.”
Fuller noted in the letter that the Centre Plan, intended to regulate development and land use within the regional centre area of Halifax Regional Municipality, clarifies density and growth corridors for the north end but does not include any additional greenspace.
“We also know that community space and heritage preservation are both desperately needed in the north end,” Fuller wrote.
Since the completion of the Bloomfield master plan, adopted by regional council in 2009, Fuller said several residential and commercial buildings have sprung up in the area and more are underway.
“Most non-profits have moved elsewhere, artists’ studios are now pushed to the edges of the city,” Fuller wrote. “There continues to be a need for affordable housing, but few of the new buildings have incorporated this into their business model.
“With this letter, we are formally submitting a petition signed by 1,660 people as of Jan. 5, to stop the sale of the Bloomfield Centre lands. These lands are public lands and should remain so.”
The developer that municipal staff have reached a deal with for sale of the property located on the corner of Bloomfield and Agricola streets has not been identified but the sale price has been estimated at $40 million.
Coun. Lindell Smith, who represents the north-end community on regional council, posted the conditions of sale that the buyer had to meet on his Facebook page last fall. Those conditions include: a minimum of 10,000 square feet of commercial space, targeted to the creative industry; a minimum of 20,000 square feet of affordable community and cultural space; a minimum of 20 per cent of the site be reserved for open space, both public and private; that the Fielding building be considered as the site for any cultural hub component; and that 10 per cent of the residential units on the site be allocated to affordable housing.
Smith’s post also included a timeline about the property, beginning in 2002 when the site that encompasses three brick buildings was deemed surplus property.
The master plan followed, projected to transform the Fielding building into a cultural centre to be owned and managed by the city, to have the Commons building managed by non-profit community groups and construction of a new four-storey building to host arts events, two 10-storey apartment buildings and 20 townhouses, with 20 per cent all of the housing to be dedicated as affordable units.
The timeline continued into 2012, when a sale to the Nova Scotia Housing Development Corporation was approved, followed four years later by the termination of that agreement.
Plans for a new junior high on the site or a school run by the provincial Francophone school board were also scuttled.
In 2018, Imagine Bloomfield and Wonder’ neath Arts Society submitted a business plan at the behest of the local councillor to restore the Fielding Building, Fuller wrote.
“This building is an important piece of heritage in a community that lost most of its heritage during the Halifax explosion,” Fuller wrote in her letter. “The longer that HRM leaves its own heritage buildings to decay, the more will be lost to our communities. … Almost every other city in Canada has worked with community organizations to repurpose school buildings, establish long-term leases and enable creative space whose benefits are invaluable. Imagine Bloomfield was extremely dismayed to have no communication with HRM staff, despite several requests, during the recent request for proposal process.”
Fuller’s letter urged council “to rethink its decision to sell the Bloomfield Centre property, to revisit the needs of the public and to use public space to meet the community we have today, with a view towards community needs in the future.”
Savage said the purchase and sale agreement has progressed beyond the point of rethinking.
“It’s important to note that the municipality is dealing with a real need for more housing units generally, more affordable housing units and affordable community and artist space,” the mayor said. “The Bloomfield site will have 20 per cent publicly accessible open space, 20,000 square feet of below-market community and cultural space and 10 per cent of residential units designated affordable housing.”
Fuller said Friday that council has in the past rendered 11th-hour decisions to change plans.
“There are precedents of going along one path and then changing because it’s the right thing to do,” she said.