Our twenty-second council meeting of the year was held on Tuesday, 02 December 2025.
The full meeting agenda, reports and video recording are linked below, as are the draft Minutes.
Halifax Regional Council – December 02, 2025
December 2, 2025 Regional Council Draft Minutes | Halifax.ca
Next week we have Budget Committee, “Capital Program Update and Advanced Tenders” including an opportunity for public participation, and a Council meeting on Tuesday, followed by the latest 2014 Regional Plan amendments public hearing on Thursday (see item 15 .1.3 below).
Here are the District 7 and beyond highlights from Tuesday’s meeting:
14.1 INFORMATION ITEMS BROUGHT FORWARD Councillor Young – Halifax Water Annual Accountability Report
This was an information report provided to council at our 18 November meeting that Councillor Young brought forward for a presentation. If you are interested in hearing the Q&A between council and Halifax Water regarding the rate increase etc., I recommend watching this portion of the video, starting at 00:59 – 2:08 which ends with Mayor Fillmore’s questions.
As I am not a member of this Board of Commissioners | Halifax Water, the take aways for me were:
Halifax Water cannot have one service subsidize another (i.e. water vs wastewater), nor can one customer class subsidize another.
Halifax Water can only pay for infrastructure benefits to existing customers.
Developers pay for new infrastructure.
The water rates we pay are for the ongoing operating costs of our built water system. (So how and where we build is key to keeping operating rates as low as possible.)
As Halifax Water is a regulated non-profit utility, they are operating within the rules set up for them and strive to keep their rates as low as possible within these rules.
2025 General Rate Application | Halifax Water
“Motion:
That Halifax Regional Council give First Reading to consider approval of the proposed amendments to the 2014 Regional Municipal Planning Strategy, Secondary Municipal Planning Strategies, Land Use By-laws and to the Regional Subdivision By-law as set out in Attachments and Schedules A, B, C, and D of the staff report dated November 17, 2025 and schedule a public hearing.”
Staff have worked hard with their provincial counterparts to revise the 2014 Regional Plan to accommodate the provincial minimum planning requirements into our most recent approved version of the regional plan (2014 with May 2025 amendments). This version also adds in some site-specific changes to be able to keep moving on some developments. As D7 is covered by the Center Plan, no changes are required. Our 2025 Phase 4 Regional Plan was rejected by the province as detailed here:
This motion passed 12 – 4. I voted No, as I am concerned about development outside our water and transit boundaries. It is not clear to me whether some of these Special Planning Areas will be financially self-sustaining or not. This motion had to pass to meet our provincial requirements and get out of the situation of HRM as an interim planning area, but my reasoning was similar to my vote in June:
19 & 24 June 2025 HRM Council Meetings: Regional Plan, Bike Lanes, Heavy Vehicles, Vehicle Noise
The public hearing will take place on 11 December at 1 pm and 6 pm. Changes are unlikely as we are reacting to the rejection of our preferred plan, but this is another opportunity for people to voice or write about concerns that may be heard by the provincial government too.
15.3.1 Less Than Market Value Lease Agreement: Spencer House Seniors Centre, 5596 Morris Street Halifax, NS
“Motion:
That Halifax Regional Council approve a less than market value lease agreement with the Spencer House Senior Centre for the premises located at 5596 Morris Street and authorize the Mayor and Municipal Clerk to execute the less than market value lease with terms and conditions that are similar to those set out in the staff report dated August 12, 2025.”
15.4.1 Councillor Steele – Staff report on the impacts of the Nova Scotia capped assessment program on the HRM housing market
THAT Halifax Regional Council direct the Chief Administrative Officer to prepare a staff report to:
a) Identify inequities within the current Nova Scotia Capped Assessment program;
b) Examine the program’s effects on housing affordability in HRM, as well as its broader impact on HRM’s Housing Strategy;
c) Include consultation with impacted groups from sectors like residential developers, home builders, rental housing operators, realtors, tenant advocates, economists and senior advocacy groups; and
d) Include a jurisdictional scan.”
This motion brought with it a healthy debate about what the Capped Assessment program is and how it effects homeowners, business owners and renters. We see that the capped program brings inequities to our communities, with neighbours each paying very different tax bills due to how long they have lived in their homes. This situation gets worse the longer the cap is in place. The current situation makes it very hard for first time home buyers to pay all of their bills and drives up rents, as buildings over 4 units are not capped. To be clear, any removal or phase out of the current system would lower the tax rate that we set, so homeowners with capped assessments now would not see large spikes in their property taxes.
Any changes to the Nova Scotia Capped Assessment program are at the discretion of the provincial government, not council.
(During this debate I stated that NS is the only province with a cap. Mayor Fillmore later informed us all that both PEI and NB do have similar capped assessments. Reading from the government sites, PEI seems to be similar to ours, and NB is more market based, but they are overhauling their system and have frozen assessments for now.)
Property Assessment | Government of Prince Edward Island
Understanding how property is valued
Freeze – Value for taxation – Frequently Asked Questions
This motion passed 16 – 1. I voted Yes.