It’s New Years Eve and just wanted to write a quick post to wish everyone a Happy New Year, may 2009 be your best year yet. I just got back from Christmas vacation back in Newfoundland, it was a great trip as always apart from getting stuck on the ferry for 40 hours. That was lots of fun!!! It is always great to see family and friends at this time of year.
In 2009 you will see a lot of changes to my blog. I want to better serve my clients and I feel my blog is in need of another update. Stay tuned for some exciting new features in the new year. Till then Happy New Year and we will see you in 2009.
Andrew Perkins
Your Halifax Real Estate Expert
HRMbyDesign will increase vibrancy and beauty of downtown Halifax
HRMbyDesign has engaged the public in a democratic, community-led process to determine the vision for our downtown and to establish new policy that will make the vision a reality. Over the past two years the citizen-led Urban Design Task Force has consulted, engaged and communicated with thousands of members of the public to ensure that the resulting plan creates a vibrant, exciting and beautiful downtown for residents and visitors. It is a plan that balances our rich past with a vibrant and beautiful future. Without this plan, we will continue to see parking lots on our waterfront, vacant and underused properties throughout the downtown, crumbling heritage resources in need of support through legislation and incentives for restoration, and an ongoing out-migration of young, highly skilled workers looking for a dynamic and progressive place to live and work.
This Plan will neither encourage nor allow 30 high-rises in the central business district, nor will it encourage the demolition of heritage resources. On the contrary, HRMbyDesign will provide strengthened heritage protections and directs any future tall buildings to those areas where tall buildings already exist, thereby preserving the heritage heart of the downtown. Finally, HRMbyDesign is creating new planning policy and has no ability to influence applications being processed under current policy.
The establishment of the Barrington Street Heritage Conservation District (HCD), HRM’s first ever HCD, will occur with the adoption of the Downtown Plan. It will help protect and conserve this continuous, well-defined heritage area through improved demolition and rehabilitation guidelines, and a tax incentive and grants program designed to stimulate the revitalization of this historic streetscape.
Improved demolition control is also being sought through provincial legislative amendments to help protect the stand-alone heritage buildings not located in the Barrington Street HCD, and through the identification of two other future heritage conservation districts – Historic Properties and Barrington Street south. Heritage design guidelines in the new Design Manual will guide appropriate development and design of buildings integrated with, and next to existing heritage buildings both inside and outside of HCD’s.
Another protection for heritage exists within the proposed development approvals process and proposed downtown land use by-law. Under the existing development agreement process, new development projects can be negotiated to heights up to the ceiling of the Citadel and Ramparts View Planes. We have seen this occur countless times over the years, as evidenced by the many tall buildings in our central business district. In many cases, HRMbyDesign is actually reducing heights below those attainable under current policy, to a pre-established maximum that has been agreed upon by the public throughout this process. These heights have been widely consulted and are informed by the local neighbourhoods, adjacency to heritage conservation districts or other tall buildings, view planes, access to public open spaces such as the waterfront boardwalk, and many other factors. Further, the new bonus zoning agreement process will provide protection 2 for heritage through onsite restoration or improvements as a public benefit to be provided by the developer.
Excerpted from www.halifax.ca website
I am an avid supporter of this plan. Halifax needs to move with the times and create an exciting downtown core. I was driving in the downtown area today and there are too many buildings not being occupied. The downtown core needs to be the heart of the city. I hope this plan gets final approval and moves forward. I will keep you posted as things change.
If you are interested in buying or selling real estate in Halifax, Dartmouth and surrounding areas you can email me.
Related Articles
- Halifax Real Estate Market Update
- Atlantic Canada Leads The Way
Andrew Perkins
Your Halifax Real Estate Expert
My Top Ten Movie List
I was speaking with my son the other day (who by the way designed my blog) and he was saying how I should bring back the Friday Random post. I guess he is not too interested in market stats and what goes on in the Halifax Real Estate Market. I was thinking last night what I could write on. I came up with a top ten list of my all time favorite movies. Here they are:
1) Rounders
2) Old School
3) The Sting
4) Usual Suspects
5) Pulp Fiction
6) Tombstone
7) Matrix Trilogy
8)Wedding Crashers
9) Cool Hand Luke
10) Braveheart
Honourable mention – Maverick
So there you have it Matthew (my son) a Friday Random post about absolutely nothing to do with Real Estate. If there are movies that you think by reading my top ten that I may like, send them along. I am always looking to watch a good flick.
Next week I will be looking at HRM by design as promised and a closer look at how the Dartmouth Real Estate market performed the last couple of months. If you are looking to buy or sell Real Estate in Halifax,Dartmouth or surrounding areas send me an email . Have a great weekend.
Related Articles
Andrew Perkins
Your HRM Real Estate Expert
Atlantic Canada Still Affordable/New housing starts down
With all the trouble surrounding the economy these days it is very nice to see a positive story for once. After reading this article, the next article I read was how housing starts are down over last year. It is hard sometimes to decipher what to think. As I have said before Halifax prices have had only modest increases over the last 10 years not like some of the other Canadian markets. I look for Halifax to continue this trend next year although probably not at the same pace. Check out the articles below.
Atlantic market Canada’s newest housing hotspot: RBC
EDITED BY STAFF, TRANSCONTINENTAL MEDIA
The Nova Scotia Business Journal
TORONTO – According to the latest housing report by RBC Economics, rapid price increases in the past two years have eroded Atlantic Canada’s affordability conditions, although some improvement is on the way in
2009.
“Forget the West. The new housing hotspots are in Atlantic Canada,” said Robert Hogue, senior economist at RBC. “St. John’s housing market is firing on all cylinders, trailing only Regina in terms of year-over-year price increases. Saint John and Halifax are also showing solid price momentum, creating favourable conditions for sellers.”
The RBC Housing Affordability measure for Atlantic Canada, which captures the proportion of pre-tax household income needed to service the costs of owning a home, improved slightly across all four classes in the third quarter of 2008 as the benchmark detached bungalow moved to 35.4 per cent, the standard townhouse to 30.3 per cent, the standard condo to 27.6 per cent and the standard two-storey home to 41.2 per cent.
The report noted that despite recent meaningful price gains across the region, housing affordability has not deteriorated excessively during the boom of the past two years. Affordability measures in Atlantic Canada currently stand only five to 13 per cent above long-run averages. Nonetheless, momentum in the region’s market is expected to wane in 2009 as economic uncertainty takes the wind out of its sail.
RBC’s Affordability measure for a detached bungalow for Canada’s largest cities is as follows: Vancouver 74.8 per cent, Toronto 53.3 per cent, Calgary 47.3 per cent, Ottawa 43.3 per cent and Montreal 40.4 per cent.
The report also looked at mortgage carrying costs relative to incomes for a broader sampling of cities across the country, including St. John’s, Saint John, and Halifax. For these cities, RBC has used a narrower measure of housing affordability that only takes mortgage payments relative to income into account.
The Housing Affordability measure, which RBC has compiled since 1985, is based on the costs of owning a detached bungalow, a reasonable property benchmark for the housing market. Alternative housing types are also presented including a standard two-storey home, a standard townhouse and a standard condo. The higher the reading, the more costly it is to afford a home. For example, an Affordability reading of 50 per cent means that homeownership costs, including mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes, take up 50 per cent of a typical household’s monthly pre-tax income. — Daily
Total housing starts decline in Halifax
EDITED BY STAFF, TRANSCONTINENTAL MEDIA
The Nova Scotia Business Journal
HALIFAX – Residential construction continued to moderate in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) last month as total starts declined 34 per cent compared to November 2007. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) preliminary data released today for Halifax, there were 118 total housing starts last month, compared with 178 in November 2007.
Single-detached starts recorded a 22 per cent decrease to 97 starts in November compared to 125 in November 2007. Multiples moderated to 21 starts last month – all of which were semi-detached or row housing starts.
“Although single starts were up 12 per cent year-over-year through the first three quarters in HRM, they were on average 16 per cent lower in October and November,” said Matthew Gilmore, senior market analyst with CMHC’s Atlantic Business Centre. “Our recent forecast called for starts to moderate in the fourth quarter and into 2009. The reasons for the decrease include the current economic environment, reduced spillover demand from the existing homes market and rising prices for new construction.”
In urban centres across Canada there were 12,780 total housing starts in November, 28 per cent fewer than the 17,816 starts in November 2007. There were 5,348 single-detached housing starts across Canada last month, 37 per cent less than the 8,490 single starts in November 2007. At 7,432 units, multiple housing starts represented a 20 per cent decrease from the 9,326 units started in November 2007. – Daily Business Buzz
Related Articles
- Halifax Real Estate Market Update
- Great News for Halifax Home Buyers
Andrew Perkins
Your HRM Real Estate Expert
