Sunday, September 03, 2006

Urban Design, Sept 3

Rumour has it that the outside of the new treatment plant some unthinking planners positioned at the entrance to our downtown (Welcome to Halifax, here's our shit!) has encountered enough budget problems that the cladding budget has been affected. Now it will look like the ugly box it was always going to look like anyway. Anyone want to bet on the smell? I think it will smell no more than the "odour-free" landfill at Otter Lake!

And to think, that land could just as well be housing office or residential development that would bring in millions in taxes annually, while the treatment plant could have been put under a parking garage on the DND lands, at no loss to the annual tax base, or to the parking capacity at the Dockyard.

Good thing the engineer responsible for that decision has retired. Of course, he now sits on the UARB, making decisions on whether to have Midtown Towers and such things.....

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