Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore says housing, transit, affordability and infrastructure are key priorities in his vision for our city.
Fillmore outlined his plan in the state of the municipality address at the Halifax Convention Centre, Wednesday and calls Halifax’s role as Canada’s Defence City.
However, Fillmore said we must face the “brutal facts” of our reality while he addressed the city’s shortcomings.
He said over the past decade Halifax has grown quicker than what we can keep up with and have the third worst traffic in the country for the second year in a row.
“Hammonds Plains Road at rush hour is just as clogged up as Lower Water Street,” said Fillmore. “More than three quarters of HRM residents feel that housing in their neighborhood is unaffordable.”
In addition to that, he said that we need to be over 68,000 new housing units by 2032.
“Last year we barely started 7,000 and the majority of those are multi-unit buildings not the single-family homes or town homes that people want where they can plant roots and build equity,” explained Fillmore.
He said we need more infrastructure ready land with faster permits and approvals.
Fillmore added, we also need to focus on taxes by and how we are spending taxpayer dollars and managing debt. Council support a motion to get debt trajectory onto what Fillmore called a more “sustainable path”.
“We were able to reduce the projected four-year compounded increase to the average tax bill from a 50 per cent increase down to a 35 per cent increase,” said Fillmore.
“But let’s be frank. That is still too high.”
He said the work ahead is about execution.
“The scale of investment flowing into Halifax, the defense commitments, the jobs, the infrastructure demands. This is a generational opportunity, and it will define what kind of city we are for decades to come.”
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