New QEII parkade plan gets council’s approval

Halifax Regional Council met Thursday for their second digital meeting since COVID-19 began.

There was only one item on the agenda – the new proposal from the Province of Nova Scotia for the redevelopment of the QEII Health Sciences Centre.

“The province was very anxious to get a tender out so we can impart to move this project forward as quickly as possible,” said HRM Chief Administrative Officer Jacques Dubé, who spoke to the new proposal before the councillors began debating.

Dubé said that over the past several weeks, city staff had been working closely with the province to come up with a proposal that worked for all parties. In total, the CAO said 10 different options were considered.

“They spent quite a bit of time and a lot of money looking at options to reconfigure the site, to allow a compromise to come forward before council and before government,” said Dubé.

The proposal before council on Thursday included the approval of a pedway over Summer Street that would connect hospital buildings with a new 8-level, 512-stall parking garage, and an exit for the parking garage exit on Bell Road.

District 7 Councillor Waye Mason, who oversees the downtown core area where the hospital is located, put the motion on the floor for debate.

When the first proposal for the hospital development was put on the floor in January 2020, Mason was against encroaching on the city’s green space, as well as the Bengal Lancers and the Wanderers Grounds.

“I want to thank the province for listening to the public. What’s happened demonstrates that when you listen to the public you end up with a better design. We have ended up with a less impactful, less damaging plan than was originally proposed,” said Mason.

The new proposal puts the parking garage on the North side of the museum on the old staff parking lot, and the QEII's new power station on the hospital grounds.

Although the downtown councillor said he wasn’t completely happy with the revised proposal, he said he would reluctantly support it.

“I don’t want anybody to think I’m saying that I think it’s a great design, there are issues with it still,” Mason said. “But it is set back from Bell Road, it is 40 per cent smaller than what was originally proposed, and no longer will require to purchase municipal parkland to be built.”

Other councillors agreed the plan had improved since the January version.

“This is not as bad as it could have been, but it’s certainly not perfect,” said District 9 Councillor Shawn Cleary.

Cleary was concerned the entryway may pose a risk to active transportation on Bell Road.

“What leeway do we have in restricting or advising them from our traffic authority on the flow of traffic in and out of that driveway, so that the bike lane and the sidewalk remain as safe as possible,” he asked. “Assuming with hundreds of spots, [there are] probably dozens of cars going in and out every hour.

According to the proposal and staff, approval of the parking garage’s exit onto Bell Road would require a traffic assessment.

Councillor Sam Austin brought up the idea of beautifying the parking garage with public art once it’s built.

“I just really want to plug the potential here to do something really innovative with that parking garage. Let’s not just do the business as usual ugly concrete thing,” he said, showing examples of painted buildings from both Kansas City and Montreal.

City planning staff told council the first item to be built would be the parking garage. Construction is expected to start in 2021 and could cause serious traffic interruptions in the downtown core.

“There would still be the expectation that the province enter into a construction mitigation plan with us, and there's lots of detail to come on that,” Director of Planning Kelly Denty told council. “Disruption is obviously going to be huge in this area and we recognize that.”

Regional council voted unanimously to approve the pedway and parking garage entranceway.