Options for Young Avenue buildings sought

Coun. Steve Adams says a motion to consider amending municipal bylaws for residential development on Young Avenue in the city's posh south end is a “relatively benign” process.

“It should be to look at options that might be available,” said Adams, who will present the motion at Tuesday's regional council meeting.

“It's to engage and start the public process to see if any of those options are suitable,” said Adams, who represents the Spryfield area. “It's not saying we're going to build any of these things.”

Adams said he's read correspondence saying that a multiunit residential project is in the works and there has been a petition going around opposing a high-density development.

“It's to look at options that are sensitive to the community. That's it, there's nothing more to it. Some people think there is,” he said.

One of those people is Adams' council colleague, Waye Mason, who represents the area that includes Young Avenue.

Mason said the motion, if adopted, would overturn a council decision reached in June not to allow any amendments while the Centre Plan is in the works. The motion, he said, would also amend land-use bylaws that were just adopted after much upset and public consultation just two years ago.

“What's changed in the last two years is absolutely nothing and I don't understand why we are even considering changing the rules that we just adopted, that Coun. Adams voted for in September 2017,” Mason said.

“The owner of those properties have come to me since last April or May and I said to him you are allowed to build some very large houses because the lots are big,” Mason said.

“If you have an 8,000-squarefoot lot, you can do a 2,400-square-foot floor plate so those are big houses. So, I said to him if you go to the community and you can convince them that you want to do five or six units and it's going to be the same otherwise, if you can convince them and they support it, I'll bring that to council. He did not do that,” he said.

Mason said instead of heeding his advice, the proponents, George and Steve Tsimiklis “came back with much larger buildings that are effectively apartment buildings with a house facade in the front.

“They go all the way back. So he wants to build much larger buildings that are inappropriate and it seems that's why we are debating this.”

Adams said the proponents have permits for nine singlefamily houses to be built on Young Avenue lots that reach to McLean Street.

“They are not the nicest buildings on the planet, that's for sure, and they certainly don't fit the streetscape, but this particular process (amendment) could very well find something that fits the streetscape and find something that the residents can live with,” Adams said. “It's not as if they are going to be cheap, dumpy things.”

Adams said the June 25 motion directing that site-specific amendment requests not be accepted until the Centre Plan is finalized contained a number of clauses that were presented en masse and accepted without being read into the record.

For his part, Mason said he finds the latest motion frustrating because he has been actively working on issues around Young Avenue for the past four years and that he would rarely consider moving something in another councillor's district and never without talking to that councillor about it.

“It doesn't make any sense to me,” he said. “He never spoke to me about it.”

Mason said the point of the land-use bylaw changes was to protect heritage.

“If you register the building and save it, you can negotiate more units, more rights and if council passes this motion it rewards bad behavior and undermines the ability of council and the municipality to provide incentives to save heritage,” he said.

The Tsimiklis brothers demolished two large homes along Young in 2016, before new planning rules were adopted to protect the character and form of Young Avenue. In September 2017, George Tsimiklis appealed the approval by Halifax and West Community Council to amend that land-use bylaw regarding Young Avenue. The appeal was denied by the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board.

Mason said the proponent has, at every stage, pushed for more rights.

“What started as a modest proposal has become a monster proposal, with much higher lot coverage, depth, units, and a very large apartment building on McLean, all of which is out of scale for the area.”

Two-thirds of council must support Steve Adams motion to allow it to recind the June motion.