Bedford Housing And Commercial Development Put On Hold
HALIFAX – A developer looking to construct a mixed-use building along the Bedford Highway will have to resubmit their plans for approval to Halifax Regional Municipality before work can continue.
For the past 90 days, United Gulf Developments Limited has been breaking down rock on the site. But, as of October 1, the permits for that work have expired and will need to go through the public process once again.
Navid Saberi, the owner of United Gulf, says he will be making some design changes before resubmitting new applications.
“There have been some changes done to the plan and we have our architect working on the modification to the plan and once that’s completed, we will submit to the city staff, which they will review…” Said Saberi.
“The verbiage in the development agreement and the architectural drawings are talking two different languages. We are trying to harmonize that into one language, and that’s been difficult.”
The building, if it gets built in the future, is expected to have retail space, office space, along with residential units.
Saberi says he spent $1-million alone on breaking down and moving the rock on site. Even then, he didn’t get all the rock broken down before the permits expired.
The rock breaking has been a point of contention for people who live in the area. There has been much complaint about the loud noise produced from the work. Tim Outhit, the city councilor for Bedford-Wentworth says he used to get many complaints from residents, but the situation improved after Saberi made some concessions.
“Quite often (I got noise complaints), but it got better because I met with the developer and I asked him not to work evenings and weekends and he agreed to do that.”
Outhit stressed that the 910 development was approved by a previous council years before he, himself, was elected.
On Facebook, some Bedford residents rejoiced that the loud work was stopping. Many felt they had to put up with the rock-breaking noise for far too long.
“Many of you will be happy to know… I just saw the big rock breaker-upper loaded up on a flat bed at the bottom of moirs mill,” wrote one woman.
Saberi said under normal circumstances a developer would blast the rock, but he didn’t think that was possible because of all the surrounding neighbours, so he chose the more tedious process of breaking the rock.
“Breaking rock is difficult; normally what you would do is go in and blast,” he said. “But, being sensitive to the neighbourhood…we decided not to blast. Rock breaking is tedious, and it takes longer.”
Saberi said he finds the criticisms frustrating and feels he has tried his best to accommodate the neighbourhood.
“Bedford is a very difficult place to develop, to be honest. People don’t make comments to make a project better; they just make comments to delay the project,” he said.
“That’s an unfortunate part of the process, but we got to go through it. It’s not pleasant, but we go through it.”
Saberi has been trying to develop the site “off and on” for several years. It was one of the first pieces of properties he acquired, and the developer says he has an emotional connection to it.
“It’s one of the first pieces of real estate that I bought a long time ago; sentimentally it’s important for me to do it and do it right,” he said.
“We’ve had opportunities to sell the site… but it’s important for me to have that site developed well.”
It’s not clear how long it might take to go through the public approval process again, but Saberi says the construction phase, if approved, will last less than two years.
“Once we get the approval, we have a team ready to build. Construction-wise, our team is one of the best in Halifax.”
“I can’t tell you when construction will begin, because that is approval-driven, but once the construction begins it’s an 18-month process.”