Monthly Archives: September 2011

Sep 30: Bayers Road Update, St Pat’s School Site in Demand

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This week’s features:

The Micmac Native Friendship Centre and North End Community Health Centre bid on the St. Pat’s Alexandra school site. by MELISSA ALBIANI of the Halifax Media Coop

Melissa Albiani takes a look at the proposal by the North End Community Health Centre and the MicMac Friendship Centre… both community organizations located on Gottingen Street in Halifax, to take over and redevelop the recently closed St Pat’s Alexandra school site, just west of Gottingen Street. The site, known as Warrington Park, is currrently home to a thriving community garden and playground.

The community organizations are up against proposals from private developers to redevelop the site.

Update on Bayer’s Road & the Road Network Functional Plan
Interview: Mark Butler, Ecology Action Centre
Over the past couple of weeks Habitat has featured discussion on the proposed widening of Bayer’s Road in Halifax. We’ve heard about well-attended public meeting where roughly 300 citizens expressed their concerns over the widening. The proposed project was a part of a Road Network Functional Plan, a sort of sub-plan of Halifax’s regional and municipal plans with plans that cover the whole municipality. This week at council, Councillor Jennifer Watts put forward a motion to remove the Bayers Road widening from the larger road network plan. The motion did not pass, instead a separate motion by Councillor Russell Walker of Fairview to defer the entire question of the Road Network Functional Plan for one year passed with a vote of 12-8. The Walker motion leave the Bayers Road widening in the larger plan, though effectively postpones council debate of the issue for a full year until fall 2012, just one month before our next municipal election.

The move by council has left both sides of the debate annoyed. Chronicle Herald columnist Marilla Stevenson, who supports a widening of Bayers Road, called the decision a “cowardly, inept, irresponsible refusal to govern” Stevenson goes on to explain her support of the widening plan. She believes it will relieve gridlock and help get more people downtown. She also believes that “providing better transit is not the answer” because it will not reduce traffic volumes.
On the other side of the debate, there is some disappointment in the fact that council didn’t take the opportunity to kill the Bayers Road project, but instead kept it on the table for future approval. Habitat spoke with Mark Butler, Policy Director at the Ecology Action Centre to get his perspective on the widening, and recent developments at council.

Sep 23: King’s Green Shift, It’s More Than Buses

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This week’s features:
Interview: Daniel Brown, King’s Student Union
Daniel Brown comes in studio to talk about Green Shift Week at King’s, and something mysteriously called the Dark and Dirty Experiment.
Interview: Mark Nener, Community Planner, Cities & Environment Unit
Mark Nener joins us in studio to talk about It’s More Than Buses… After 3 public sessions on transit in Halifax, the group has compiled a report and recently presented to a city council committee.

Sep 16: Bayers Road Widening

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This week focusses on the proposed widening of Bayer’s Road in Halifax. 

Sometime this fall, regional council will consider a plan that calls for widening Bayers Road to three lanes each way – six lanes total –  from the CN overpass to Connaught Avenue,  and two lanes each way from Connaught to Windsor Street.  But the project is just part of a larger plan to widen Highway 102, being spearheaded by the province of Nova Scotia.

We talk to Janet Stevenson, an HRM citizen concerned over the project who attended this week’s public meeting on the widening.

Then we have Jane MacMillan and Jim Guild in studio, to share not only their perspective on the Bayers Road widening project, but also their experience in the fight to stop the widening of Chebucto Road.
And finally, we call HRM Councillor Jennifer Watts, to get a politician’s perspective on the project, and ask whether it will transform transportation in Halifax for the better or  worse.  Watts and fellow councillor Jerry Blumenthal hosted a public meeting on Wednesday night attended by over 300 citizens.

Sep 9: Halifax in 50 Years, Muskrat Falls, and Regulating Coal

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Interview: Christine Macy, Dean of Architecture and Planning at Dalhousie.
Christine Macy joins us in studio to talk about the Faculty of Architecture’s upcoming 50 year anniversary celebrations, including the 50/50 Visioning event, looking 50 years into Halifax’s past, and 50 years into its future.  The school is assembling 20 teams of design professionals and citizens to come up with some ideas for the future of Halifax.
Interview: Brennan Vogel, Energy and Climate Change Coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre
Brennan Vogel tells us about the federal governments new coal regulations, and how they interplay with planned loan guarantees for the proposed Muskrat Falls hydro project.

Sep 2: Moncton backyard hens, Keystone pipeline protest

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Interview: Anne Marie Laroche, Moncton NB backyard chicken keeper
We follow up with Anne Marie Laroche, a Moncton resident who volunteered to keep chickens in her backyard last year.  the City of Moncton doesn’t normally allow chickens to be kept in the city, but made an exception in this case as Laroche was part of a pilot project spearheaded by Post Carbon Greater Moncton.
Interview: DM Stoneman, activist
DM Stoneman joins Habitat after wrapping up a protest outside the US Consulate Office in Purdy’s Wharf in downtown Halifax. Members of the Sierra Club of Canada Atlantic Chapter and other concerned citizens started a peaceful lunchtime protest against the Transcanada Keystone pipeline at noon.  The local protest was held in solidarity with the two-week Stop the Pipeline sit-in that is currently taking place outside the White House in Washington D.C.    Since August 20, over 700 people have been arrested outside the White House for protesting the proposed $7 billion pipeline that will carry oil approximately 2,700 km, from the Alberta tarsands to Texas refineries.   We ask DM Stoneman to explain the project, and tell us his concerns.