Decades-old clause keeping grocers out of Halifax neighbourhood hurts community, say residents

A real estate clause thatlimits who can sell groceries onGottingenStreet in Halifax has also causedgenerational damage in the historically Black neighbourhood, says a community advocate who grew up in the area.

Grocery giantSobeysoccupied 2300GottingenSt. in the late 1950s, operating until the mid-1980s, until it built a newer store 1.5 kilometres away on North Street, where it remains today.

It left behind afood desert in its wake a term used when there are barriers to accessing affordable and nutritious food within one kilometre as well as arestrictive covenant that limits how certain property lots in the city's North End can be used, even after changing ownership.

The covenant, and others like it across the country,has caught the eye of Canada's competition watchdog.

Rodney Small, who spent his youth in theGottingen Street area and is now the executive director of One North End, a community economic development organization,said the negative effects of losing the neighbourhood's large grocerare still being felt decades later, especially in the Black community.

"When we talk about the processed foods and the foods that aren't so great for us, they were readily available through the corner stores, and then we had, you know, a lot of the restaurants there that were serving the greasy foods," said Small. "So these eating habits, they passed down from one generation to the other, so we watch what our parents eat and we pick up on that."

Had the covenants not been in placewhen Sobeys left the area, Small said he believes Gottingencould bea very different place, and perhaps would not have been gentrified.

Earlier this year,Canada's Competition Bureaulaunched investigations into the effect ofrestrictive real-estate provisions used by the parent companies of Sobeys and Loblawthat can dictate who is allowed to sell food in an area and where.

The independentbureau said in a statement last month it is trying to determine whether the companies"are imposing anti-competitive restrictions,"though it had not yetfound anyevidence of wrongdoing.Itdeclined an interview, citing the ongoing investigation.

AlthoughSobeyssold theGottingenStreet property, the covenants were still in place at 13addresses as of 2019, including at 2274, 2278, 2290, 2272, 2300, 2302,2306, 2220GottingenSt., and 5501, 5511, 5515, 5519, 5523 Cunard St.

That means no stores that sell fresh or frozen meats, vegetables or dairy can be set up at those addresses unless the covenant is amended or removed.

"There isn't affordable, nutritious food in this neighbourhood. There's expensive pizza and exotic restaurants," said Anne McDonald, a longtime resident of the community.

"They're so costly that ordinary people, certainly not the ordinary residents of this place, can't afford them."

ShanaColley, another longtime area resident, shares McDonald's sentiment. She takes transit across the harbour to Dartmouth to buy healthy food she can afford.

"They should have a real grocery store here, like an affordable one,"Colleysaid. "There's a lot of children [here] and we need groceries we have to travel far to get them, like I am right now."

Sobeysdid not return a request for comment.

A research project in 2019 revealed 55 grocery store covenants in Halifax. The project was done by JennaKhoury-Hanna, an associate lawyer specializing in municipal law, land use and planning.

Khoury-Hanna, who works forKinchEddie Litigation Professional Corporation in Campbellford, Ont., said covenants vary in their scope, and can apply to more than just grocery stores.

"Restrictive covenants can be registered on title and they continue to run on title unless the person who's benefiting and the person who's burdened both agree to remove it," she said.

In 2018, a three-storey, 103-unit apartment complex was built in the oldSobeyslot.

The covenant on the property was amended bySobeysto allow small, higher-end food stores. The building now also houses Real Fake Meats andSpringhouseMarket.

Colleysaid she'd like to see a No Frills, a more affordable supermarket owned byLoblaw, on or around the property. But as it stands, the restrictive covenant would likely prevent this.

Even if it wereto be lifted, it doesn't quite solve the problem, saidJill Grant, a professor at Dalhousie University's School of Planning.

"I don't think those chains would go in. They want a cheap space that they can get out in the peripheries. They wouldn't see enough demand to build something," said Grant.

"It's really tough. This society has changed in ways that have made driving to buy affordable food almost mandatory."

WendieWilson, a community and cultural advocate with the African NovaScotianand Black Food Sovereignty working group, said trying to fix this food desert and others like ithas become her life's work.

Wilson said she'd like to open a food centre in the area, and hergroup is in talks with neighbourhood organizations.

"What we want to be able to do, as a group, is to make these foods available to people of African NovaScotiandescent and the broader Black community, either highly subsidized or free," said Wilson.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check outBeing Black in Canada, aCBCproject Black Canadians can be proud of.You can read more stories here.