Editor's Note: OSWatch meets the first Tuesday of every month at the Firehall at 260 Sunnyside Ave. Next meeting is Sept. 7, 2010 and this issue will be discussed. All are welcome to attend.
My [OSWatch] Co-Chair Mohammad al-Asad and I met with two City Planners on May 21. We began by expressing the dismay local residents were feeling about a number of recent residential redevelopments and infill developments which were out of character with the neighborhood, reduced the attractiveness of streets and overwhelmed existing houses.
Based on this we emphasized the community’s strong wish to have a Community Design Plan (CDP), and pointed out that we were on the record two years ago with this position. We said we understood that there were limited resources and that the City might feel other areas were a higher priority. So we suggested that a smaller more limited “residential infill study” would be acceptable as a first step. We were even prepared to help fund a study if it was a step to improving the local zoning, and therefore the quality of new residential buildings.
The two planners said we “did not want a CDP”. They explained that they saw a CDP as being for areas of very substantial new and intensified development based often on rezoning, such as in greenfields, or a main street where there could be high-rise development. The planners maintained this position through the meeting. Also they said they did not think we could have any study or zoning change in OOS that was not done for the rest of the city. The City Planners argued that our problem, if there was one, was with the whole zoning by-law. They wanted concrete examples of how houses which were allowed to be built recently were in violation of good planning principles. We promised to provide them.
We had an extensive discussion of parking. There is a provision in the zoning by-law that prohibits more than 50% of the frontage being driveway, but there is also an exception to allow each unit a driveway of at least 2.6 meters. So the driveways can, and often will be, more than 50% of the frontage in the case of townhomes. The City Planners thought we might be able to look at changes to the parking requirements on a neighborhood basis, such as allowing front yard parking or even banning front yard garages but there would need to be community wide support. This issue had come up in the meeting for the 71 Hopewell development where many, including Clive, suggested parking in front of the units and no garage.
The advice we received was contrary to that we have been receiving from the Councillor’s office for the last few years and OSWatch will need to follow this up. Do we continue to pursue a CDP despite this advice? If we don’t do a CDP is there another process to obtain the longer term community plan that there is clearly community interest in. OSWatch has already begun to look at these issues.
First published in the September 2010 OSCAR.