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Originally Posted by Dado
Of course they created a stumpy block version for the scaled-down version. That's a deliberate ploy. They usually do that.
Whatever height the zoning allows, developers have an incentive to craft a stumpy version that conforms to the height limit as a form of aesthetic blackmail as a counterpoint to a much nicer looking taller building. So developers that are quite capable of creating attractive 8-storey buildings in a 4-storey zone create stumpy 8-storey buildings in 8-storey zones where they want 15 or 20 storeys.
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It's not a ploy; it's about money. If they go taller, it tends to look nicer because they tend not to be constrained by economics. When they are forced to go shorter, it looks stumpier because they try to fit as many units as possible to provide the greatest profit margin possible on that site.
It's not a ploy, it's what any businessman would do.
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Umm, the City has never appealed anything on planning matters to the OMB (pre-amalgamation is another matter). Your statement doesn't even make any sense: developers [propose to?] go over the height limit because the City ... what? appeals its own decisions to the OMB?
The approval authority for planning matters is the City of Ottawa. It does not appeal its own decisions - it's the decisions of the City that are appealed by the applicant and/or a third party.
Decisions taken by the Committee of Adjustment can be appealed by the City as well the applicant and third parties, but for something to have been subject to approval only by the Committee of Adjustment it would have had to have been pretty minor - or should have been. Generally City appeals of CoA decisions are based on a claim that the variances were not minor and that a rezoning request was in order (hence beyond the jurisdiction of the CoA to approve), which would make the City the approval authority.
The Committee of Adjustment is supposed to be for genuinely minor things, particularly those that result from the existing historical built form deviating from what subsequent zoning permits, meaning that when someone attempts to alter or add to the building they can run afoul of the zoning because the existing building is already in contravention of the zoning. That's the sort of thing the CoA is around to sort out. But now the CoA is increasingly being treated as a means to attempt de facto rezonings through the back door rather than going by the proper route, which ultimately involves City Council.
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Ah, I see now that not only was I confused, but I also didn't mean to put the city there. The point I was mainly trying to make (as convoluted as it was at the time) was that it certainly seems like almost every decision made in this city is appealed to the OMB, usually because some people get their panties in a knot over some "skyscraper" going up in an area where it makes sense.
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