The mayor of the Halifax Regional Municipality and his fellow councillors are sounding off on the provincial government after the housing minister proposed amendments that he says would help expedite housing development.
Mayor Mike Savage says he is displeased, but it mostly comes down to a lack of consultation and coordination between the two levels of government.
“Very disappointed,” Savage tells Global News. “Not only is this a dramatic intrusion of the municipal jurisdiction, but we had no notice, no heads up that this was coming.”
On Friday, John Lohr, the minister of municipal affairs and housing, tabled legislation to amend the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter, which would allow the Nova Scotia government to override any municipal by-laws that “are impeding housing development and construction.” But Lohr says right now, the province is only looking at the city’s approved changes to its noise by-law.
Previous changes approved by the municipality would limit the hours that construction noise could occur, beginning November 21, bumping the end time back from 9:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and preventing rock-breaking from occurring on weekends.
“A lot of people in communities don’t want this kind of noise at all,” Savage says. “Some have said ‘workday only,’ meaning maybe 5 or 6 o’clock.”
But construction noise is a reality for a growing city.
“We’re in a housing crisis,” Lohr said Friday. “We have immense challenges to have more housing units built. We have a shortage of skilled labour, so to curtail the number of hours these people can work, the construction industry can work, we can’t accept that right now.”
Asked if the province was looking at nullifying any other municipal by-laws, Lohr was short and clear: “No.”
But Sam Austin, the municipal councillor for Dartmouth Centre, is baffled by the changes.
“They’re literally stepping right into my job and poking all of us in the eye,” Austin says.
“While we hope there will not be a situation when we have to use this authority, these amendments will allow the minister to intervene on behalf of Nova Scotians when bylaws are impeding housing development and construction,” a news release from Lohr reads.
The province says similar legislation has been implemented in British Columbia, Quebec and New Brunswick.
But Savage says while there has been lots of consultation between the province and the municipality in the past about housing, that’s not the case this time. He says the city was only warned about the changes the night before they were proposed in the legislature.
He will be voicing his concerns whenever the legislation comes before the province’s law amendments committee.
“I’m not the kind of guy that runs around saying the hair is on fire and the world is coming to an end, but this offends me,” Savage says. “As somebody who’s been in a different order of government, I don’t think this is the way things should be done.”
“We can work together on these things, but don’t intrude on municipal jurisdiction,” he says. “We’re already stretching our mandate to house people who are unhoused, we’ll work with the government.”
Austin says there isn’t a ton of construction occurring between the 8:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. hours and even if they approved more development, it would still take plenty of time due to the labour shortage.
He’s hopeful the provincial government reconsiders the move, but worries that won’t be the case.
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