DARTMOUTH - Early last October, I attended the public consultation meeting for Dartmouth Common Master Plan proposals.  Yesterday, HRM released the consolidated plans that took into account the community consultation feedback they received at that meeting.  Now the planners at CBCL Limited have provided one more window for public feedback on the updated plan [ PDF ] where they are accepting emails and phone calls with community members' comments and criticisms until November 29th. To give a little background, the Dartmouth Common Master Plan is Dartmouth's version of HRMbyDesign.  The plans are not limited to preserving green space, but include relocating and expanding the Metro Transit Bridge Terminal, renovating and extending the Sportsplex, potentially creating an "urban edge"—mixed use commercial-residential buildings along the corner of Nantucket and Wyse—and in the long term, reclaiming the waterfront as a connected part of the Common. In short, the plan looks to completely transform the entire area and will govern much of Dartmouth's future development for at least the next 25 years.

DARTMOUTH - On Monday night, HRM held a public meeting with community members over the master plan to transform the Dartmouth Common [PDF] into a "gateway" to Dartmouth.  While the mission statements and overarching goals pointed towards creating places where "we will experience both the commonplace and the ordinary," the real controversy was over the placement of the new Bus Terminal, currently in the parking lot to the north of the Sportsplex. Before raising the ire of the many people who attended the meeting and passionately argued over the many places where the new Bus Terminal should go by putting in my own two cents, there's plenty of other content in the Master Plan to go over whose benefits should be seen as self-evident. First, there were four plans put forward, the major difference between them being that in the first two plans, the bus terminal runs alongside Nantucket Ave. and in the third and fourth plans, the terminal has been rotated 90 degrees and connects Nantucket to Thistle St.  All four master plan options call for the elimination of the majority of the Urban Wilderness part of the Common. Ignoring master plan option one (p.9 of plan), which is practically identical to option two (p.10) except that it proposes replacing almost all green space north of Thistle (aside from Mt. Herman Cemetery) with an ocean of surface parking, the only radical change proposed would be to put a regulation-sized soccer field where the baseball diamond currently is on the southern side of Thistle. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Dartmouth Common Master Plan Option 4"][/caption] Options three (p.11) and four (p.12, pictured above) propose far more radical, progressive changes; ones not limited to the well-being of the recreational aspects Common but that concern the entire area and drastically transform the suburban Wyse-Nantucket intersection into a far more urban, downtown streetscape.  Both options call for a five or six storey "urban block" to be built at the corner where the Scotiabank is currently located, with storefronts on the ground level and offices up above.