How HRM’s anti-sprawl policies foster more sprawl

Richard Stevenson, one of the province’s top water and sewer engineers, spends a lot of time thinking about how the province can cope with its crumbling municipal infrastructure. He has come to the conclusion HRM’s stringent regulations governing development actually work against the stated goals of the city’s planning department. HRM espouses a policy of increasing the density of the urban core, but its own planning regulations result in lower population densities. R-1 single family zoning limits population density to 20 persons per acre, or 45 persons per hectare (to protect us against barrio-like overcrowding, I presume). The city also requires that we...