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Urban-planning centre has big plans for Halifax

Organization wants to engage the public in urban-development discourse

About 40 city planners, architects and members of the public – some curious, others simply craving free booze — crammed into the Garrison Brewery at the Halifax Seaport Thursday night to share their wildest visions for a more sustainable Halifax.

Participants of what's known as a "charrette," poured over maps, strewn haphazardly over bar tables.  Words flowed as freely as the beer, as lively debates erupted at each table.  In a flurry of markers and drafting paper, these visionaries came up with new plans for a greener city.  Some ideas tossed around were light rail systems throughout the municipality, transforming the harbourfront into a space for green industries, connecting the Trans Canada Trails in Dartmouth and erecting farmers markets in the Hydrostone neighbourhood. 

The Planning and Design Centre hosted the charrette with Dalhousie's faculty of architecture and planning, as part of a conference series entitled “Sustainable Action: Turning Challenges into Opportunities,” which ran from Feb. 11 to Feb 13.  The centre's organizers were hoping to encourage  public participation in the city's development process.  They're hoping to garner enough support to secure a physical space in which to engage the public in a dialogue with developers, city planners and officials at the Halifax Regional Municipality. 

Heather Ternoway, one of the centre's project coordinators, wrote her master’s thesis on the centre, which became a project of the Cities and Environment Unit, an applied research and planning group at Dalhousie University, in 2003. Ternoway drew inspiration for the centre from an existing centre in Paris.

 “I visited the Pavillon de l'Arsenal ... It was an amazing space that captivated my imagination,” says Ternoway.  “There was endless information about the city, its history and its ongoing projects, all presented in a simple, visual and accessible manner.”

While a handful of interns and staff work out of an office in the Cities and Environment Unit, they hope to secure a store-front space downtown, similar to Paris’ Pavillion de l’Arsenal.

"I started to wonder why Halifax didn't have this sort of institution,” says Ternoway.

Clara Stewart-Robertson, another project coordinator at the centre, asks herself the same question.

“We have centres for all kinds of disciplines, from an oceanography centre to a women's health centre, and from an adventure earth centre to a centre for small business studies,” says Stewart-Robertson. “Where planning and design are more than mere disciplines, theories, or single developments, but instead a functioning system of all fields and all perspectives, how is it that we do not already have a planning and design centre?"

The “missing link” in HRM's development strategy

The centre has wide support from people in HRM who think the current development strategy needs to incorporate greater public participation.

“We’ve come a long way in terms of raising public awareness about the importance of good design, especially in the urban core...but there isn't really a mechanism beyond the legislative to carry that forward,” says Paul MacKinnon, executive director of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission and supporter of the planning and design centre. MacKinnon says Halifax should draw inspiration from other cities, which have design centres “that raise awareness through the entire community, both about what's happening in terms of development, along with what constitutes good urban design.”

The HRM's urban design project manager, Andy Fillmore, also supports the planning and design centre, referring to it as  “the missing link in between the community and HRM as a decision maker about planning issues.”

“The HRM planners tend to be exceedingly busy all the time and that has the tendency to leave very little time for communicating information on a project by project basis,” says Fillmore, who hopes the centre will make people realize that they do have a voice in helping shape new developments in their communities.

While information about proposed developments to HRM is available to the public if they actually head to the planning office and pick through applications and documents full of technical jargon, the planning and design centre would have all proposed plans presented in an easily understood manner, alongside models and images of the proposed designs.  They would also help feed public input back to the city.      

First Major Project

The first major project of the centre is already underway, as they partner with developer W. M. Fares in organizing an international public art competition, which started accepting submissions last week. The jury will be composed of local designers, artists, architects and members of the centre. W. M. Fares will select plans for the best piece to be erected outside of a new building being constructed on the corner of South Park and Brenton Streets, the Trillium.  The budget for the artwork will not exceed $75,000. 

This competition operates under HRM's public art policy, says Stewart-Robertson. The policy, approved in September,  stipulates that all building developers will have to put one per cent of their construction costs towards public art.

“We're showing how that policy will function through real projects,” says Stewart-Robertson, “while building design culture in the region and supporting local artists and designers.”