11/02/2026
Our followers may remember that provincial interference in HRM's municipal planning processes last year resulted in the loss of proposed watercourse setbacks and bird friendly design guidelines organizations like ours worked hard to get into the Regional Plan. Now, in an effort to build housing anywhere and everywhere, the province is pushing HRM to allow for suburban expansion where it ought to be planning for wildfire mitigation and conservation of our near urban ecosystem goods and services.
From the Halifax Examiner:
"Morse wrote that these new rules may open up new areas for development outside the municipal service boundary, while HRM has been trying to encourage developers to build within the current municipal service boundaries.
“Building new housing within the existing municipal service boundary typically requires less new infrastructure and therefore a lower tax burden,” Morse wrote.
Morse wrote that Halifax regional council has already approved changes in zoning that would allow for developers to build tens of thousands of new housing units within the municipal boundaries.
“But in this latest directive, the Houston government is forcing HRM to allow more housing in areas where the municipality is building new roads for emergency egress routes in case of wildfire,” Morse wrote.
“These roads were intended to be basic gravel roads to be used only in emergencies, not opportunities for new housing development in wildfire risk areas,” Morse said.
Residents in communities in HRM have been speaking up about the lack of egress. That includes neighbourhoods along Pockwock Road in Upper Hammonds Plains, where residents had to evacuate during the wildfire that started in Tantallon in 2023. We reported on those residents’ concerns in this story from August.
“This latest HRM planning intervention by the Houston government may open up new areas for developers, but it is also likely to open up a Pandora’s Box of future challenges and costs for the municipality and residents,” Morse said."
https://www. halifaxexaminer. ca/government/city-hall/councillor-says-nova-scotias-new-housing-rules-may-open-up-pandoras-box-of-future-challenges-for-hrm-residents/
