FHC in the press:
Posted 
0 4-02-10
The Tragedy of the Common: If the Common is so common, why can't common people decide how to use it?
The Coast Magazine, Opinion - Sustainable City, by Chris Benjamin
from: http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/tragedy-of-the common/Content?oid=1503404
"Picture a pasture open to all." So wrote Garrett Hardin in his 1968 Science article, "The Tragedy of the Commons." His thesis was that a shared natural resource, in self-interested human hands, could only be destroyed. It was a thought-provoking article that is still invoked to advocate and justify private ownership.
The history of our own Halifax Common at times veers toward destruction, but it has survived shared ownership by the people, either because or in spite of municipal government intervention. The Common was once a shared Hardinesque pasture. It has also been a campground, a dump and a race track twice---once for horses and once for cars. It used to be much bigger, but pavement, steel and glass ate the grass.
It was granted in 1763 by King George III "for the use of the inhabitants of the Town of Halifax forever," and we've been arguing about how to use it ever since. Some want more green space, some want more infrastructure. The idea of "daylighting" an underground stream was even considered, but the plan died because it would eliminate three to eight sports fields.
Since amalgamation, those decisions lie with HRM regional council.
Councillors from Hubbards to Ecum Secum decide what happens to Robie Street residents and businesses. City staff, led by real property planning manager Peter Bigelow, implement those decisions. He stood before about 75 local residents in late January and unveiled the latest multi-year plan for the North Common. "We're only making minor adjustments," he tells me later.
Most of the plan is good. Pathways are being widened for better bicycle and police vehicle access, as per a new crime prevention strategy. Lighting will be improved, and the fountain is being upgraded. Trees are being planted. A massive new rink is going in for the Canada Games, and will be open to the public for much of next winter. (Strangely, it will be relocated after that, presumably to the district of the councillor who wins the blindfolded cage match.)
The controversy is over mega-concerts. "We're going to upgrade one area," Bigelow explains, at Cogswell and North Park. A hard, permanent sub-surface will be placed under the grass, and a power source and seating will be added. Instead of experimenting with different parts of the Common, concert promoters will be funnelled into one corner, presumably cutting down on Keith Urban-type desecration of the whole park. The cost will beabout $600,000.
Bigelow says the Common is ideal for audiences in the tens of thousands because it is walking distance from the homes of 50,000 Haligonians, cutting down on auto traffic. But its immediate neighbours aren't thrilled at the prospect of more surviving Beatles, Eagles and Monkees, and the eating, drinking, pooping masses they bring.
"Mega-concerts don't fit the spirit of common land," says Jill Ceccolini, who has lived nearby since 1994. "They don't support local music, they're not accessible or community-spirited.
"Parking is disrupted, you see people peeing on your yard or trying to sit on your porch, throwing cigarette butts---there's no clean-up outside the actual Common."
Daniel Rainham, who lives near the Common and is an environmental health professor, is put off by the scale of the concerts.
"With such limited space it seems unreasonable to shut down all other uses for one concert," he says. "I don't see anything wrong with having smaller, less invasive shows."
Ceccolini believes that the motivation for mega-concerts is economic gain for a few promoters, who along with the city are "treating the community as a commodity. Maybe the city doesn't have a sense of what people want."
She feels that the money---both this new infrastructure and the subsidization of concerts themselves---would be better spent showcasing local artists. Rainham suggests budgeting for "maintenance of existing facilities and planning for different future uses other than hospitals and schools and parking lots---based on a broader discussion of what people really want."
Ceccolini calls the January public meetings a "slick sell job," rather than the genuine consultation she thinks the Common deserves.
Bigelow disagrees, saying that mega-concerts are just one tick on the city's checklist of cultural programming. He adds that the popularity of mega-concerts speaks volumes. "When you have 40,000 people showing up to a concert they're voting with their feet."
Further consultation seems unlikely. "Council has already had that discussion," Bigelow says. Call it the tragedy of the Halifax Common: what is supposedly for everyone has been decided by the few.
Posted 21-01-10
Some wonder if plan for Commons concert venue a done deal
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE Staff Reporter, The Chronicle Herald
from: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/1163431.html
It’s an outdoor concert venue at the Halifax Commons that doesn’t exist and is among planned upgrades to be pres-ented to regional council with public feedback.
Yet the event space — part of about $3 million in proposed changes to the North Common area — already has bookings, an open house at city hall heard Wednesday night.
Critics of large concerts that have been held at the Commons in recent years wondered how that could be.
Municipal staff told them that the open house was part of the public participation process and that their comments and concerns would be sent to council.
But some in an audience of about 75 people wondered whether the park’s future is already a fait accompli and if their ability to get the attention of the politicians was a non-starter.
A city staffer pointed out that at least three councillors were at the open house.
The proposed concert venue would replace a ball diamond on the corner of the North Common that’s across from the municipal tennis courts. It’s a spot near an intersection with considerable vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
That area was selected for redevelopment because it has the least-used diamond, one that sports enthusiasts have complained is often too wet to be used.
It wouldn’t be a site with a raised stage, but a stone pad or small plaza would give performers an electrical connection to a small power-supply building to be built nearby. Seating wouldn’t be provided.
At the city hall meeting, Peter Bigelow, Halifax Regional Municipality’s manager of real property planning, faced unhappy park users after he said bookings for the venue are already in place.
One of them, he said, is for next summer — a huge powwow to celebrate the 400th anniversary of a native leader’s baptism.
Mr. Bigelow said the proposed changes will enhance the look of the North Common and ultimately improve "a whole range of activities" for park users.
The park’s facelift also calls for the widening of pathways, more trees and park benches, improved lighting, a refurbished fountain and the creation of small entrance plazas. Some $720,000 worth of work could be done next spring and summer, the open house heard.
The planned upgrades would make it easier to stage small and big entertainment events, like last year’s Paul McCartney and Kiss concerts that attracted tens of thousands of music fans to the green space in the heart of the city.
This did not sit well with some concert foes, and they took the city to task for appearing to push ahead with the new concert venue element at the same time public comment was being sought. They asked: How genuine could an open house organized partly to elicit feedback from metro’s citizens be?
"I think that the public consultation in this city is a joke," a young woman said after the display of plans and a presentation by municipal staff.
Commons preservationists worry about the amount of land that, over the decades, has been taken up by buildings and even paved over. For instance, a tiny portion of the park was once paved for a car race; that section now caters to skateboarders and basketball players.
According to Friends of the Halifax Common, less than one-third of the Commons’ original 95.1 hectares, granted in 1763 by King George III, is public open space.
"Over the next 2½ centuries, public institutions were added to the Common as these were seen as appropriate public uses," the group’s website says.
Another modern element of the Commons is crime. The park has been a place where pedestrians have been mugged, swarmed or beaten, and many people avoid walking there at night.
Mr. Bigelow said the upgrades will help make the park safer.
With respect to large concerts, which were on the minds of many at the open house, municipal leaders have trumpeted the benefits to the local economy. But two business operators with enterprises close to the North Common said those types of events have hurt their bottom line and led to employees losing pay due to reduced shifts.
Also, at least two of the big concerts left the Commons in rough shape after the artists and their gear were shipped out of town.
( mlightstone@herald.ca)
Posted 10-24-09
Drawing Green Parallels
Commons supporters, climate change activists join forces to highlight need to protect nature
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE Staff Reporter, The Chronicle Herald
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Remnants of the original Halifax Commons are representative of the "disappearance of our global Common," park lovers and climate change fighters say.
An event promoting today’s International Day of Climate Action and bemoaning the vanishing Halifax Commons was held Friday afternoon. Less than one-third of the Halifax Commons’s original 95.1 hectares, granted in 1763 by King George III, is public open space ... more> |
Posted 11-27-08
Looking for Common Sense: The land deal between the city and the province chips another piece off of the Halifax Commons
By BRUCE WARK, Coast Magazine
I call it city council's royal fuck-up. The Queen's High School is being traded to the Queen's Hospital for a new central library on---where else---Queen Street. And we're all worse off. The deal means... more>
Posted 07-31-09
Commons may become more concert-ready
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE Staff Reporter, The Chronicle Herald
...// there’s a move afoot, between city hall and the province, to consider designating the Halifax Commons a permanent performance venue. The idea doesn’t mean erecting a stage and bleachers, but it could mean ...more
Download Articles:
Bruce Wark, Coast Magazine "Looking for Common Sense 
Protecting Halifax's Common Ground
Long Awaited Land Swap Ready to Go