Rural Development Re-Form

In 2005, my sole proprietorship consulting firm, in conjunction with several very capable colleagues was commissioned to do a report on the future of non-urban development in HRM, as a part of the input to the Regional Planning process. Entitled   "Options for On-Site and Small Scape Wastewater Management", it is available for download form Halifax.ca on the Regional Planning page.

The objectives of the work were several, and included:

• How can the different community forms identified in the HRM Water Resource Management Study (Dillon Consulting 2003) be best serviced for sewage disposal in ways that meet public expectations for environmental performance, cost, and convenience?
• Are there proven means of wastewater management that match well with the different scales of development that are occurring and are proposed for HRM?
• What are the best ways to address areas that have old, poorly designed on site systems that are now beginning to fail?
• How can a practical servicing plan be adopted, coordinated and implemented by the various responsible municipal departments?

The study answered those questions, using technological approaches that were available at that time, of which some have since become fairly normal in most of Nova Scotia.  You can read about them in the report.  What I'd like to re-post is the last chapter, the part written by me, and edited by John Zuck, MCIP, who is one of the most capable, thoughtful and brilliant planners who has ever worked in our region.


Excerpted from the study, Chapter 8.  Published 8 years ago, in March 2005.The Link to Community Planning

The situation currently facing HRM, suburban sprawl that leapfrogs zoning restrictions, enabled by the ability to commute at will to the city, is a common one for cities all over the western world. Zoning was developed to address land use issues that have now changed dramatically. It is not clear whether zoning failures result because the zoning instrument is unable to respond to changing conditions or whether we have not been sufficiently innovative in the application of this tool to control development.

Developers have responded to residential housing demand within the constraints presented to them by government. For example, the effort to contain growth in Bedford was expressed in the Bedford Municipal Planning Strategy as a green belt, which restricted residential development to lots with a minimum area of two acres. This green belt is now full of large lot subdivisions that are often a wasteful use of good land. The large lot zoning requirements were not put in place in anticipation of development of the scale that has occurred in the past fifteen years. However, municipal land use controls have not been effective in directing more appropriate development forms. The fact is, the developers built what they were able to build, and found a market for it.

The challenge that now exists is creation of a community form that is attractive to both homeowners and developers, is more efficient in provision of municipal services, and is environmentally sound. Exploration of community form was not part of the scope for this project, but we believe that there are lessons to be learned from attempts to meet this challenge in various other jurisdictions.

We do not advocate a wholesale adoption of the “New Town” movement in the USA or elsewhere, but we do see certain advantages in recognizing some of the design parameters that inform that design approach.
It is interesting to note that many of the “New Towns” have not fully realized their original, intended form. A mix of commercial, institutional, and residential development was originally proposed for these greenfield developments. These new towns filled a residential demand, but there was no appreciable market for commercial or institutional land until substantial residential development was in place. The question may really be: can we determine where development will occur, or is it only possible to offer inducements; do we try to create new centres, or enhance existing centres?

In HRM, several places are already beginning to function as the cores of Rural Service Centres. They can be described in this way because commercial development already exists. These centres may start as malls, or in an earlier stage of evolution, as strip malls. In some cases, these budding community centres have attracted other non-commercial community facilities and already have an outlying area of residential development. Could it be that current mall parking lots are the site of future small town streets?

If the commercial and institutional development, some services, and roads to the centre are already in place, we might think about recognizing the development of a small town at an early stage and begin to facilitate a healthy Rural Settlement Area environment. 

A good example is Upper Tantallon, at Exit 5 on Highway 103. The “mall” already includes restaurants, a grocery store, coffee shops, a liquor store, a library, a pub, a very large hardware and building supply store, and a gas station. The local RCMP station, seniors' home, the community centre, a rink (soon to be expanded), a small sewage treatment plant, and possibly a new high school are all clustered around the centre of this area. Large residential areas have been developed, or are being developed in the surrounding landscape. Perhaps all this needs is recognition in policy and a more urban structure applied to it to establish a traditional town form.

An essential component of urban structure would be provided with central services and a street grid to encourage in-fill development. A new “Town of Tantallon” might soon be born.          Conceptual rendering of Exit 5, prepared by Ekistics Planning and Design, 2004

We suggest that one opportunity to better focus residential development in suburban areas in HRM may exist in the formalization and enhancement of existing centres such as Tantallon and Fall River. A municipal government has the tools to make this happen. The municipality can do many things to encourage the growth of Rural Service Centres, including amendment of planning strategies and rezoning. Perhaps the greatest incentives would be the construction and operation of sewage treatment plants, and the extension of central water services. This approach would be complementary to another residential initiative being encouraged by HRM, urban densification through in-fill and brownfield development. The development of Rural Service Centres can, in concept, become a “rural in-fill” initiative.

We recognize that changing how development takes place is a difficult thing for a Municipality to do. Developers prefer to make money using the same idea over and over again, as long as it still makes money. In order to make the cluster concept of residential development potable, and even attractive to developers, we suggest that HRM recognize the value of increasing the local density, by allowing an increase in net density. We suggest a 10% density bonus for developers who choose to concentrate development on land that is most capable of supporting it, while leaving the rock, bog, and barrens alone.

A plan illustrating development capacity for a property can be developed by an engineer, applying NSDEL lot sizing criteria, and using HRM or Provincial Department of Transportation and Public Works road width standards. This would represent a base development budget for the property. A 12 acre parcel might yield 10 lots under past practices. If the developer chooses to apply conservation design principles, and share services, perhaps build private roads to be owned and maintained by a condominium corporation, and leave a substantial amount of open space, then they would be permitted 11 units.

This approach can result in a win-win situation, where the developer makes money (perhaps more), people live in a better designed community, and HRM increases density while increasing open space.


The ideas presented in this report were not lost on HRM Planning Staff, and they were also not lost on the smart developers.  What failed HRM was the engineering community, led by those at Halifax Water, which in time assumed responsibility for wastewater treatment in HRM.  But the consulting engineering community also continued on doing the same thing it always had, and even when new planning rules came into effect, the goal of the industry was not to change, but to work around the rules to create the same sprawling subdivisions they always had.

The goal was not to make a large number of the idealized Tantallon shown above, but to create policy that would allow a development form based on denser housing, more open space, and shared services without adding to the "Big Pipe" nightmare facing future Haligonians when we try to meet upcoming Federal effluent discharge guidelines, and do that with leaky gravity sewers and combined sewers.

Why do I call out Halifax Water?  The report, and the associated recommended development forms, rely on new ways of thinking about servicing homes and creating communities.  Water supply and sewage treatment are huge industries in the developed world, and are burdened with massive poor assumptions and bad habits.  No real advances have been adopted by urban areas in so long, we still rely on basically the same servicing approaches the Romans did for sewage.  We move all the sewage to one place to get rid of it where we hope it won't create a new problem.  Where it should have led us into the future, Halifax Water keeps us firmly entrenched in the past.

The approaches to rural development envisaged by the authors of the report, and its steering committee, required that two engineering "addictions" be cleansed from the reflex responses of those responsible for providing water and sewer services.  First, central water supply can be extended without central sewer.  Second, not all sewage needs to be connected to the massive web of collection systems in the city, and if kept in proper scale can be treated close to the homes that generate it, with the water part returned to the ground.

These two basic ideas, which are now known to be possible, and feasible, still escape the engineering community, for the most part, and Halifax Water especially, who are functionally addicted to continuing to grow and feed the massive and poorly named Halifax Harbour Cleanup system. (perhaps it's some pathetic effort to justify spending all that money?)

Halifax Water is no more than an "engineerocracy" that is so set in its ways it will happily take over and operate a multi-million dollar pumping station designed to further overburden large treatment plants that cannot meet a reasonable effluent quality standard, but will not look at operating smaller, modern efficient plants that have no discharge other than returning water and some nutrient to the soil.  

The inexorable link between development form, and how it is serviced, has arguably never been understood by those charged with shepherding development in HRM.  It really is time we started looking at how other places do it well, instead of repeating the mistakes of others.