By John Chenier
Zoning bylaws are what animate our urban space. They are the means by which planners transform the lofty goals set out in the Official Plan into results. As the recent City document on the adoption of the 2021 Official Plan notes:
The Zoning By-law is an important mechanism for implementing the new Official Plan and is the primary tool for regulating the use and development of land in the city.
Zoning determines what streetscapes will look like: how tall the building along each side will be, what activities will be permitted in these buildings, often to the extent of what times and on which days these can occur. It controls how many and what type of vehicles will use the roads that connect and divide communities.
Zoning defines the existence and structure of neighbourhoods and, in the process, determines the value of the land where it sits. It is not how much land you have that matters, but what you are permitted to do with it that counts. In Ottawa, it takes a show of strength to ensure zoning bylaws work for the community, to have them enforced, to ensure they achieve the results desired, and, most importantly, to prevent the scourge of spot rezoning.
For decades planners in North America have been designing cities built for and ruled by cars. Developers carved out neighbourhoods and industrial parks from large tracts of empty land; clustering shopless suburbs around concentrations of stores surrounded by vast parking lots. Planners, meanwhile, designed major arteries that cut through and divided inner-city neighbourhoods to get suburbanites to their place of work. Older neighbourhoods in the inner city, in their attempts to retain a sense of character and community, have faced a barrage of poorly enforced, ever-changing, zoning rules and decisions that are transforming their neighbourhoods.
While homogeneity of design and structure were, and still are, staunchly defended by zoning in the suburbs, the same cannot be said for inner-city communities. And it will continue to be the case. To quote from the 2021 Official Plan:
Planning for the evolution of a new subdivision in Kanata or Barrhaven will be different than for a former streetcar suburb such as Hintonburg, or a 19th century downtown neighbourhood like Centretown.
In the urban core, zoning is constantly being tested and changed. In mature neighbourhoods such as Lowertown, the push for densification and intensification has resulted in existing zoning designations being modified to allow for tall apartment buildings which tower over adjacent single-family dwellings.
If the recent past is any indication, the combination of poor or sketchy enforcement of existing bylaws along with the confusion created by overlapping, contradictory zoning jurisdictions — such as those applying to land in proximity to LRT stations versus land in a Heritage Conservation District — have the potential to destroy the fabric of Lowertown West.
Enter, the new Official Plan.
Community Associations and other civic advocates have invested countless hours over the years attempting to plug holes in the existing zoning bylaws. There have fought for, and won, new regulations such as the R4 review and new Streetscape bylaws to help keep neighbourhoods in the inner city safe and livable. But there is to be no rest for the weary.
To realize the vision set out in the new Official Plan, with its nebulous terminology of hubs, corridors, transect approach and the “intensification targets of the growth management strategy,” the City is planning to do a complete rewrite of its existing zoning bylaws over the next two years. To help cover part of the $8.3 million cost of this massive undertaking, the City is proposing to levy new development charges.
There is no indication whether and how community groups such as the Lowertown Community Association, whose volunteer resources are already stretched to the limit by the daily demands for change and adaptation, will be engaged or participate in the exercise. Perhaps, our City Councillors should be given a budget over the next two years to hire planners as part of their office staff whose job it would be to work with their respective community associations to ensure they can participate in a meaningful manner. After all, we live here.
In Sandy Hill, streets of quiet single-family homes were being bought up and modified to suit student housing. Houses that had once accommodated a single family were expanded, lot-line-to-lot-line to provide rooms for up to 20 students, with little or no space left for adequate handling for garbage, recycling and the like. The creation of these over-populated, under-serviced student dorms was the main impetus behind resident demands for the city to review, revise and tighten the bylaws that govern R4 zoning.
Indications are that having been driven out of Sandy Hill, developers have moved the bunkhouse model north into Lowertown where they are encountering less resistance from residents.
The new Zoning By-law will include provisions to ensure the policies in the Official Plan are implemented and will simplify the layers of provisions that currently apply in Zoning By-law 2008-250.
BACKGROUND The Zoning By-law is the City’s main regulatory tool for controlling the development and use of land within its boundaries. The purpose of the new Zoning By-law is to implement policies in the new Official Plan and develop an efficient, effective and equitable comprehensive by-law to replace the current Zoning By-law 2008-250. This re-write will develop new regulations and development standards to allow for the orderly development of a variety of ground-oriented, low-rise, mid-rise and high-rise housing opportunities while protecting the key aspects of neighbourhood character. It will provide greater flexibility and permissions for non-residential, commercial and industrial lands including new hubs and corridors, special districts for economic development, and updates to provisions in rural and village areas. The resulting Zoning By-law will implement the intensification targets of the growth management strategy, while helping to guide Ottawa’s evolution towards the most vibrant and livable mid-size city in North America. Principal work will commence upon approval of the new Official Plan and the proposed budget, subject to approval of the New Zoning By-law Development Charges By-law, 2021. The project has a completion target of Q4 2024