In his October 2024 Newsletter, Councillor Sam Austin had a lot to say about Ocean Breeze.
The councillor’s statement about the demolition of Ocean Breeze reveals the limitations of current housing policies, while also avoiding deeper accountability for the community’s displacement. He frames the issue as inevitable, citing the dilapidated condition of the townhouses and the economic forces driving redevelopment. However, his emphasis on the townhouses being “at end of life” risks simplifying a more complex situation, where alternative solutions like significant public investment in repairs or tenant protections could have been explored earlier. While he laments the loss of affordable housing, his statement glosses over the immediate human cost of displacement and fails to fully address the urgency of finding homes for evicted residents.
A critical aspect of his argument is his critique of the private market’s incapacity to provide deeply affordable housing, due to high construction costs and market incentives that favor profitability. While this is a valid critique, his focus on the failure of the provincial housing agency to step in overlooks his own role, as a city councillor, in proactively championing policies that could have preserved this community. His call for a more “activist public housing agency” feels retrospective rather than forward-looking, especially since the rezoning under the Centre Plan effectively accelerated the process of displacement by increasing the redevelopment potential of the site. Although he argues that rezoning was not the cause of the demolition, the Centre Plan undeniably incentivized larger-scale redevelopment.
The councillor’s proposal to transfer public housing responsibility from the Province to the municipality raises important points about local governance, but it comes across as somewhat idealistic without a clear plan for securing the substantial financial resources needed. While he notes that HRM is better positioned to build and manage housing due to its planning responsibilities, this vision hinges on provincial cooperation, which he admits is not guaranteed. Ultimately, his critique of systemic failures in housing policy is valid, but his response lacks concrete solutions for the current crisis at Ocean Breeze. By focusing on long-term reform without addressing the immediate needs of displaced families, the councillor risks sidelining the people most affected by this redevelopment.
His message is below.
Ocean Breeze. Photo: CTV
By Sam Austin Oct 2024 Ocean Breeze:
A few people have been asking me about what’s happening at Ocean Breeze. Ocean Breeze is a townhouse community that is located just north of the MacKay Bridge near the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. The townhouses on the property have been around since 1963 and are basically at end of life and need major work. Although the buildings aren’t in great condition, they are very affordable with rents of less than $1,400 a month! It’s the kind of housing that just doesn’t exist anywhere else other than in public housing. There is a real community at Ocean Breeze with some long-time renters.
As part of the Centre Plan, Ocean Breeze was zoned Higher Order Residential, which allows for apartment buildings to be built on site. The property changed hands in 2021 and the new owner is proceeding to redevelop the site through a phased approach. The owners have, so far, kept units that have come vacant empty so that they can shift original tenants out of units that are due to be demolished, but that is a time limited approach. Sometime in the next several years, there will come a day when the last townhouses get torn down and the folks who are left will have to find somewhere else to live. The loss of the affordable, family-oriented housing at Ocean Breeze will be felt.
The fundamental problem that Ocean Breeze lays bare is the folly of expecting the private sector to provide deeply affordable housing. When it comes to the private sector and affordable housing, it’s not a won’t, it’s pretty much a can’t. Costs for construction are too high and market incentives work against the objective. Affordable housing is a public good and it should be paid for like how we pay for other public goods: collectively through government. The failure at Ocean Breeze is that our provincial housing agency wasn’t able to effectively intervene in the housing market to protect and create non-market affordable housing. The missing piece here is an activist public housing agency.
Imagine a different world where our public housing provider, Metro Housing, was actually expanding to meet the need. In such a world, when the Ocean Breeze application came in, HRM and Metro Housing could have worked out a deal with the developer to purchase units or land to replace what’s being lost. If we want to prevent Ocean Breeze type situations, we need our public housing agency to take up its role of providing non-market housing.
The suggestion has been made that the Centre Plan rezoning to Higher Order Residential is causing the demolition of Ocean Breeze. That’s a simplistic read of a complex situation. No matter what Ocean Breeze was zoned, the owner would have some redevelopment rights. There is no zoning that HRM could have applied that would have been “you can do nothing.” The idea that things would stay as is because HRM tried to block anything major from happening seems like a very unlikely outcome given that the underlying situation of the townhouses being old and rundown with well below market rents would still be true. All the incentives to tear down the buildings and do something else with the property would still be there, regardless of whether the property was zoned for townhouses or larger apartments.
Let’s pretend for a moment that HRM didn’t rezone the property to allow for high-rises and that it was zoned for townhouses instead. In this alternative world, would the owner of the property have just gone away and left things as is? Not a chance. Townhouses on nearby Nadia Drive are selling for just under $500,000, and there is empty space at Ocean Breeze so it’s not hard to imagine a profitable outcome for the developer, without needing to build any high-rises. About all that would have changed in a townhouse scenario is the sale price for the property would have been less since it would have had less redevelopment potential. The end result though of the affordable housing disappearing would have been the same. The rezoning to allow apartments is making the redevelopment of Ocean Breeze bigger, but it’s not what has caused the loss of affordable housing.
To try and get at the root cause of the issue that Ocean Breeze highlights, my platform has a commitment to create more public housing by transferring that responsibility from the Province to HRM. I believe public housing would be better run at the municipal level because HRM would build units, and public housing would pair very well with the municipality’s existing planning responsibilities. The challenge is paying for it. There is no point in HRM taking on public housing if we’re not setup for success. I think that could be solved too if the Province is willing to negotiate. Making change around public housing will require the Province’s agreement and won’t be easy, but with all the pressure and attention on housing, there really hasn’t ever been a better time to ask. We’re fundamentally not going to solve our housing issue without a major recommitment to building non-market housing in all its forms. You can read more here.
