{"id":61224,"date":"2025-12-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=61224"},"modified":"2025-12-21T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T12:00:00","slug":"mayor-fillmore-addresses-growth-budget-pressures-and-suburban-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=61224","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Fillmore addresses growth, budget pressures, and suburban infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tough budget year ahead for HRM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

HALIFAX:<\/strong> Mayor Andy Fillmore says Halifax Regional Municipality is facing one of its toughest budget years in decades, with staff and council working to reduce a projected 10.9 per cent average tax increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fillmore said he has asked staff to clearly separate core municipal services from \u201cnice-to-have\u201d programs, focus on a \u201cfix-it-first\u201d approach to maintaining existing assets, and scale back costly design elements on new projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the goal is to continue delivering essential services while easing pressure on taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suburban development waiting on planning framework<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BEAVER BANK\/FALL RIVER:<\/strong> Mayor Andy Fillmore says development in communities like Fall River, Beaver Bank and Sackville often lags behind urban areas because suburban secondary planning has not yet been completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that while the municipality\u2019s Regional Plan guides growth across HRM, action depends on detailed secondary plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Suburban Plan, now under development, is expected to put suburban growth areas on equal footing with the urban core, with significant progress anticipated in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Affordability, housing, and transit top resident concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

FALL RIVER:<\/strong> Affordability remains the top concern residents raise with Mayor Andy Fillmore, driven by rising taxes, water rates, power costs, inflation and interest rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Housing supply, congestion and transit mobility also continue to rank high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fillmore said Halifax Water has emerged as a growing pressure point, with infrastructure struggles affecting housing construction, economic development and public safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City looking to diversify revenue, speed up housing approvals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOWER SACKVILLE:<\/strong> Fillmore says HRM must reduce its reliance on property taxes, which currently fund about 82 per cent of the municipality\u2019s operating budget, significantly higher than most Canadian cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the municipality is exploring diversified revenue streams, stronger partnerships with other levels of government, public-private partnerships, faster housing approvals and access to lower-cost land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On transit, he highlighted progress toward bus rapid transit and ongoing discussions with the Canada Infrastructure Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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$3.6M stormwater project to improve Highway 2 reliability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

FALL RIVER:<\/strong> A $3.6-million stormwater project along Highway 2 is expected to significantly reduce flooding caused by heavy rainfall, according to Mayor Andy Fillmore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project is jointly funded by the federal government and HRM, with Ottawa contributing $1.5 million through the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund and the municipality providing $2.2 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Fillmore said the investment will improve reliability for residents, buses and commercial traffic while delivering long-term cost savings through climate-resilient infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was asked about if the work this is to do isn\u2019t already being done through the ditch tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the grand scheme of things, of course, we\u2019re all taxpayers,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this is a government funded project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, yes, whether it was directly from the ditch tax, that’s a level of detail I don’t have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategic plan guides municipal priorities<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BEAVER BANK:<\/strong> Mayor Andy Fillmore says HRM\u2019s newly released strategic plan is a rolling document that guides the work of municipal departments in support of council priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While much of the plan builds on work from previous councils, he said the current council made adjustments following the election and will increasingly shape the document over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan aligns municipal operations with broader frameworks such as the Regional Plan and Integrated Mobility Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tough budget year ahead for HRM HALIFAX: Mayor Andy Fillmore says Halifax Regional Municipality is facing one of its toughest budget years in decades, with staff and council working to reduce a projected 10.9 per cent average tax increase. Fillmore said he has asked staff to clearly separate core municipal services from \u201cnice-to-have\u201d programs, focus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,957],"tags":[527,9968,3839,50,8235,8542,9969,9970],"class_list":["post-61224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","tag-andy-fillmore","tag-costo","tag-growth","tag-halifax","tag-hrm-budget","tag-mayor-andy-fillmore","tag-suburban-infrastructure","tag-suburbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}