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Originally Posted by someone123
We don't really know the details though, we just know what both sides are saying to the media. The developer apparently alleges the city told them some paperwork would be adjusted and it would be fine; maybe there's a paper trail for that and somebody at HRM screwed up, or maybe the developers got ahead of themselves. We will need to wait to hear what a judge says.
If we're just talking about a hypothetical where a developer builds additional floors they know are not approved, then I still think it's the financial incentives that matter. Another aspect here is that HRM height limits tend to be arbitrary and so there is no clear rationale for one building to be 9 vs. 11 floors. Presumably a judge will look at what damages were actually caused, which may be hard to articulate if there's a height limit with no rationale behind it.
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If this is the way it is, then it makes me wonder why we have development agreements and approval processes at all. Why not just eliminate all of the bureaucracy and just let developers build what they want on their land. As long as it’s built safely, to code, it should be fine? It would avoid all of these little inconvenient issues that slow down density increases. We wouldn’t even need all of these little covert verbal agreements that allegedly happened, just build it!
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