Bain, John D., "An Analysis of the Nova Scotia Shopping Centre Development Act: Its History and Impact on Retail Commercial Development in the Province"

In December of 1979, the Nova Scotia Government passed An Act to Regulate the Development of Shopping Centres. The purpose of the legislation was threefold. First, it was to ensure that all concerned individuals and organizations would have an opportunity to express their views prior to a new shopping centre development being approved or refused. Secondly, it was to provide a mechanism whereby the potential impacts of new shopping centre developments on existing retail structures could be understood. Finally, the Act was to ensure that new shopping centre developments were both necessary and desirable.

This thesis examines some of the history of this legislation by looking first at the emergence of the shopping centre as a major form of retailing in direct competition with established central business districts. As these centres evolved from small strip malls to large, climate controlled conglomerates, different planning tools were used to address the various issues inherent in their development. In Nova Scotia, specific legislation was passed to address some of the issues related to uncontrolled commercial expansion.

Various groups and forces dictated that provincial intervention in the market was necessary, if not essential for the proper working of the economy. Specifically the media and community associations worked together to pressure the government to react. Prior to these pressures the Provincial response to shopping centre developments in the absence of specific legislation was primarily through the Municipal Board. It is noted that an evolution occurred whereby the Planning Act improvised as shopping centre control legislation. As the Municipal Board could only act when an appeal was to be heard a more encompassing method for dealing with shopping centre developments was needed.

The Shopping Centre Development Act permitted four exemptions from its provisions. In the ten years after the Act was proclaimed, only four shopping centre proposals did not fall under any one or more of these exemptions. Based on the measure of floor area, these four centres accounted for just over ten percent of shopping centre retail floor area constructed between 1980 and 1990. The exemption which allowed the greatest amount of floor area to be built without any market study nor public hearing, pertained to developments located within the Regional Development Plan boundary set out in the Halifax-Dartmouth Regional Development Plan. The exemption which resulted in the fewest exemptions pertained to the definition of a shopping centre as a development exceeding fifty-thousand square feet.

These two exemptions were the only two which allowed developers to make adjustments in their proposals such that they could avoid the provisions of the legislation. This thesis suggests that there was in fact a relative concentration of shopping centre developments in the Halifax-Dartmouth region. In the nine years prior to the Act being proclaimed, this area accounted for forty-eight percent of shopping centre development. In the following nine years this percentage increased to sixty-eight. With respect to the second exemption, it was expected that in the area outside of Metro Halifax, the form of retail developments would change to favour smaller neighbourhood centres (i.e. centres of less than 50,000 sq. ft.) over centres which would have met the Act's definition of a shopping centre. This thesis suggests the replacement of one type of retail development for another did not occur.

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This document was last modified on January 3, 2001.