Opposition fails to convince Houston government to amend controversial housing bill

Nova Scotia's opposition parties, unable to convince the Houston government to shelve a controversial bill, tried in vain Tuesday night to convince PC members of the House to accept amendments instead.

The government's proposed changes to the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter and to the Housing in the Halifax Regional Municipality Act would give Housing Minister John Lohr the power to approve development projects across the entire municipality.

Lohr has promised to use that power sparingly but has argued he needs that leverage to spur housing projects that are not moving ahead quickly enough.

The Liberals proposed 11 amendments, all of them designed to make the process more transparent, or in some way limit the minister's power to decide entirely on his own.

Amendments included:

• Making public all ministerial approvals, along with a justification as to why the decision was made.

• Publishing details of the approved projects, including "who is leading the development, when it's expected to begin and end, number of units to be built, how many affordable."

• Restricting approvals to neighbourhoods or communities with enough road capacity to handle traffic increases and emergency vehicles.

• Ensuring any new developments are tied to funding for additional recreational facilities, schools and emergency services, including fire, ambulance and police.

• Making consulting with the municipality and with Black communities mandatory.

The NDP proposed a similar amendment to consult with African Nova Scotians and Mi'kmaw communities "to ensure the protection of the communities before exercising the power."

PC members used their majority in the House to defeat every amendment put forward by the opposition.

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill said his party put forward its suggestions to guide a minister with no experience in urban design or development.

"We need to be reassured that the minister, in his haste to get housing developed … that we don't lose the necessary steps to ensure that neighbourhoods we're building, the buildings that we're building, are going to be safe," said Churchill.

New Democrat Kendra Coombes made a similar plea in support of the Liberal amendments.

"Because we don't really have a huge planning department here at the province, because that's mostly left to the municipalities," said Coombes. "We have to put amendments like this into bills to ensure people are safe. And first responders can get into them and they can get to them in times of crisis."

She called it "trying to make a bad bill not so bad."

Lohr told CBC News he wasn't against "the goal of those amendments," but he felt they weren't needed as part of the bill.

"We believe that the bill encompasses that and will encompass that in regulation, so we think we have that covered," said Lohr.

He also promised not to "look at any project that hasn't gone significantly through or mostly through the HRM process."

"We would want anything we look at to be municipal planning strategy compliant and meet all the required regulations," he said.

Bill 329 has cleared the committee stage of the law-making process and will now proceed to third and final reading.