Howard Epstein’s letter to Halifax Council, written on behalf of the Friends of the Halifax Common, about the mega-development of four towers of 30, 26, 20 and 16 storeys proposed for the block formed by Spring Garden Road and College, Carlton and Robie streets.
News release: Two proposals for four towers (16-, 20-, 23-, 29-storeys) on a single block between Carlton, Spring Garden Road, Robie and College Street will be considered at HRM’s Peninsula Advisory Committee Monday meeting and Heritage Advisory Committee’s Wednesday meeting. Friends of Halifax Common August letter to HRM Mayor Savage asking for a halt to the projects and for a Conservation District has not been responded to. FHC’s request was made when it learned that formal detailed requests made for an area Conservation District in 2012 and again in 2016 were ignored. These requests should be considered in advance of any new projects.
News release by Friends of the Halifax Common: In return for the School for the Blind land being given to the VG, citizens were promised a fully landscaped Park within a Park -200 trees & 200 parking places, a scented garden and a landscaped path along the block of Tower Road included in the deal. Should this be the new Urban Farm location?
Peggy Cameron, founding member of Friends of the Halifax Common, takes issue with a proposal now before Council to build a soccer stadium on the Wanderer’s Grounds, to remain there for at least the next three years. There are lots of issues, Cameron writes, but ” the larger issue is the private use of the public’s space for private profit of a private businessman.”
This weekend’s poem, night cemetery by Robin Metcalfe, was inspired by the ghastly murder of John William Tha Din in 1988 in the Halifax Camp Hill Cemetery, a well known gay cruising area at the time. It’s from Writing the Common, a wonderful collection of poems about the Halifax Commons by a great bunch of local poets, published in 2013, by Gaspereau Press.
This week we feature a poem by David Huebert about the colonization of the Halifax Commons. April was poetry month, and we managed to not publish one single poem. But never mind, it’s May, and we have another poetic surprise planned for next weekend.