Downtown councillor wants City Hall to help stalled developments
Posted Jun 8, 2011 10:05:34 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Coun. Dawn Sloane (Downtown Halifax) says she wants City Hall to help developers get their construction projects moving – or find out why building plans have stalled.
Halifax Regional Municipality staff will launch a review of 23 approved projects, which have not started construction, to try to determine why the developers haven’t broken ground.
“I think it’s almost like saying to a student who’s not doing very well in school, ‘Is there something we can do to help you?'” Sloane told News 95.7 Tuesday.
Council heard the development agreement on the Twisted Sisters project expired over a year ago, about four years after United Gulf purchased the development site from the city.
“If the analysis that comes back actually has some meat, to it so that we can actually do something to aid those individuals … that’s one thing,” said Sloan. “If it comes up that we have, let’s say, 12 development agreements that are expiring and no one’s coming back to renew them or try to reintroduce a development, than we have a serious problem.”
Sloan does not suggest the city should go the way of reclaiming land or stopping projects.
In March, the Waterfront Development Corporation decided to reclaim the Salter Block land after Centennial Group Limited asked for another extension on its contract to build a hotel, retail and commercial development on the site.
The report is not due to come back to council until September, near the end of this year’s building season which runs from March to November.
