Adams backs off Young Avenue motion

The motion to consider amending recently adopted municipal bylaws for development in southend Halifax never even got to a vote Tuesday.

Coun. Steve Adams (SpryfieldSambro Loop-Prospect Road) withdrew his motion at Tuesday’s regional council meeting. If successful, the motion would have overturned a council decision reached in June not to allow any site-specific amendments to the land-use bylaw covering the regional centre while the final phase of the Centre Plan is still in the works.

“This is going to Package B of the Centre Plan,” Adams said after the meeting about why he retracted the motion. “I had been talking to our planning staff, and there was enough divisiveness, so if it passed or it didn’t pass, it would still end up in the same place for consideration in the same timeline.”

Coun. Waye Mason, who represents the Young Avenue area where the development is proposed, had said last week that it is quite unusual for a councillor to propose a motion concerning a council colleague’s district, especially without talking to that councillor first.

Mason said the motion, if adopted, would not only reverse council’s decision on site-specific amendments but it would also amend land-use bylaws that were adopted two years ago amid much debate and public consultation.

“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 last week.

Adams said the proponents, George and Steve Tsimiklis, have permits to build nine singlefamily houses on Young Avenue, a streetscape that features large, historic mansions.

“The motion was simply to begin a process to determine if there was a preferable option to the present as-of-right proposal,” Adams said in a statement to council after withdrawing the motion. “There was no mention of high-density apartments or any type of development.”

Adams said he never harboured “any malicious intent or ulterior motive.”

A frustrated Mason said last week that the developers want to build “much larger buildings that are inappropriate and it seems that’s why we are debating this.” Mason said the point of the landuse bylaw is to protect heritage.

Mason told council that he had received a petition with 304 signatures on it opposed to highdensity development on Young Avenue and against reopening the land-use bylaw amended two years ago. Mason said additional petition signatures were pouring in.