As a follow on to the Sandy Lake post, here’s a link to the land use map for Halifax/Dartmouth. Why do people want to pave over wetlands for housing? Because you’re not allowed to add any extra housing in most of the urban core. – March 28, 2023 at 05:45PM

The map:

https://hrm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/lookup/index.html?appid=030dd8e387fb4be8a144b446cddbef88

The list of permitted uses in each zone starts on page 41:

https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/about-the-city/regional-community-planning/regionalcentrelub-eff-23jan05-case24540.pdf

Zone ER-2 (yellow – ER for ‘established residential’) does not permit townhouses or three-unit buildings, let alone small apartment buildings. Ditto for ER-1 (pale yellow) except in certain areas. No commercial either, so if you are lucky enough to live there you probably still need to drive somewhere to go to work, get groceries, or pick up a bag of nails. Isn’t traffic fun?!

In 2020, the city graciously allowed people to add basement apartments or backyard suites in these zones. Given our rental vacancy rate is still around 1%, this doesn’t seem to have helped much.

Funnily enough, it’s even possible to find the odd small apartment building in the ER-2 zone that appears to fit in perfectly well with the neighbourhood, but would not be permitted under the current land use bylaw. For example, this one on Allan Street: https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.6481331,-63.5963187,3a,75y,20.78h,91.39t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s_hPrHhjBnHYcoqiKmz_MHw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D_hPrHhjBnHYcoqiKmz_MHw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D54.05814%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

So because of this, all we get is suburban sprawl (which makes traffic worse, destroys habitat and natural spaces for people to enjoy, and is expensive for the city to provide services to), or 30-storey towers that will rent you a one-bedroom apartment for $2000/mo cause hey, where else are you going to live?