Halifax has removed the final hurdle to development in some areas — and neighbours are fighting back

A wealthy Halifax neighbourhood with tree-lined streets and grand homes on the Northwest Arm has become one of the latest battlegrounds in the city’s push to build more housing.

The Birchdale subdivision in the South End has had a restrictive covenant in place since 1941, which states only single-family homes can go on these multimillion-dollar lots.

But that changed this July, when Halifax’s chief administrative officer (CAO) approved a request to change that covenant on a Thornvale Avenue property in the middle of the neighbourhood, switching it to the underlying land-use zoning.

Owner Michael Risley told neighbours he wants to build a small condo there because the zoning allows up to eight units depending on lot size.

“That would be an ugly change to our little corner of paradise,” neighbour Colin MacDonald, a businessman and co-founder of Clearwater Seafoods alongside Michael Risley’s father, John Risley, wrote in an email to other residents and Halifax planning staff.

MacDonald is one of roughly a dozen neighbours around the Thornvale property strongly opposed to the move. The group has brought forward one of multiple cases asking the Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board to overturn the CAO’s decisions on covenants.

Covenants are legal agreements between property owners, and are often brought in by residents themselves or developers when creating new subdivisions. 

Jamie Baxter, associate law professor at Dalhousie University, said these agreements lay out rules about what someone can or cannot do with their land. Those rules stay, even when properties change hands — often indefinitely.

Covenants are civil matters, and municipalities do not enforce them. 

But in 2023, the provincial government passed legislation that pushed Halifax into the realm of covenants for the first time. The changes allow Halifax’s CAO to alter a covenant that is more restrictive than the current zoning, with respect to height or density. 

Applications to lift covenants began coming into the CAO’s office after Halifax made major zoning changes last spring stemming from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund. Four housing units are now allowed on most lots within the service boundary, and up to eight units a lot — depending on lot size — in most areas of the urban core, like the peninsula.

Sarah Brannen, a Halifax spokesperson, said of the 13 covenant decisions made by the end of October, the CAO’s office had approved all but one. 

So far, five of those decisions have been appealed to the appeals board.

“I think it's pretty piecemeal. I mean, I think it leaves a lot of uncertainties yet to be determined,” Baxter said about the current system.