{"id":194318,"date":"2023-11-15T11:11:32","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T16:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=194318"},"modified":"2023-11-15T11:11:32","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T16:11:32","slug":"n-s-housing-minister-suggests-streamlining-development-bylaws-across-province","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/n-s-housing-minister-suggests-streamlining-development-bylaws-across-province\/","title":{"rendered":"N.S. housing minister suggests streamlining development bylaws across province"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nova Scotia\u2019s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing John Lohr is looking to amend the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nslegislature.ca\/sites\/default\/files\/legc\/statutes\/housing%20in%20the%20hrm.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Housing in the Halifax Regional Municipality Act<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During Thursday\u2019s House of Assembly proceedings, the minister suggested making changes to development bylaws across the province in order to speed up the building of new housing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe province is in the midst of a housing crisis like we\u2019ve never seen before,\u201d Lohr says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Policies have not kept up with the changes in the housing landscape and has caused developments to be denied or severely delayed, Lohr says, referencing <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.halifax.ca\/business\/planning-development\/applications\/case-23293-beaver-bank-road-windgate-drive-beaver-bank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beaver Bank Road development<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThese amendments are about removing barriers and speeding up development where it is needed for the benefit of all residents,\u201d Lohr says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These amendments come after <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nslegislature.ca\/legc\/bills\/64th_1st\/1st_read\/b329.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bill 329<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> amendments received criticism from the Halifax Regional Municipality when they were introduced last month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bill, which passed during the fall legislative session, will give the housing minister the power to approve development in HRM without consultation from regional council or community councils, as outlined in the bill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Leader of the Liberal Party Zach Churchill says this could lead to favouritism with the provincial government having the ability to make decisions on which developers get certain projects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe\u2019ve seen this happen with the PC government in Ontario,\u201d Churchill says. \u201cThe legislation that was moved in Ontario allowed the minister to engage in favouritism and overrule local decision making and local planning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Leader of the NDP Claudia Chender says the housing minister should not have the authority to dismiss housing experts input.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chender says \u201calarm bells should go off\u201d when other orders of government can be overridden and decisions can be made behind closed doors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Listen to the story below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nova Scotia\u2019s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing John Lohr is looking to amend the Housing in the Halifax Regional Municipality Act.\u00a0 During Thursday\u2019s House of Assembly proceedings, the minister suggested making changes to development bylaws across the province in order to speed up the building of new housing. \u201cThe province is in the midst&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":194896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,21655,225],"tags":[32715,32716,19914,32717,32714,10168,437],"radio":[13058],"origine":[274,300,278],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194318"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194318"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196097,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194318\/revisions\/196097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194318"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=194318"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=194318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}