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Posted Dec 8, 2010, 8:45 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2010
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Don't know if anyone has seen this. A few days ago in the Ottawa Citizen:
Quote:
OTTAWA — Peter Hume wants to add some clarity to City Hall's urban planning and simultaneously restore a little faith in the city government.
The Alta Vista councillor and chairman of city council's planning committee is set to launch an ambitious process to overhaul some of the more nebulous language in the city's official plan that seems to consistently allow developers to build higher-than-called-for buildings, against the wishes of their neighbours.
Hume is calling for more specific height restrictions with less wiggle room for exceptions: a five-storey maximum for traditional pedestrian-friendly main drags, like Bank Street, and 10 storeys for car-oriented arterials, like Carling Avenue.
"We've experienced a lack of certainty (in planning) that hurts our credibility as a city and as a planning department," says Hume. "People say we're in the development community's pocket, that we only do what they want.
"It doesn't inspire confidence in the community or in the planning process."
No kidding.
During the three-day planning committee meeting that dealt with Ashcroft Homes' controversial rezoning application for the Soeurs de la Visitation site in Westboro, residents didn't pull any punches.
One man referred to the community's "outrage" at the city's planning department. Another mused that "staff have spent too much time drinking developer Kool-Aid." One woman said that Ashcroft didn't need to attend the planning meeting because the city's own staff was doing "a great job of representing them." Yet another turned in her seat, looked directly at the city planners sitting beside her and said, "Who are you guys working for, anyway?"
It's clear where anger comes from. Developers routinely ask for exceptions to heights and density, city staff usually backs them up. And when the elected council disagrees, usually at the urging of the community, the developer virtually always wins on appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board, a provincial tribunal that can overturn city planning decisions.
This conflict presents the planning committee -- and, by extension, council -- with "an incredible dilemma," says Hume.
On one hand, as stewards of the public purse, councillors don't want to decide against developers knowing that they'll likely lose at a subsequent OMB hearing. Indeed, the city has spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on legal bills defending decisions that were ultimately overturned. On the other, city politicians don't want to vote against the wishes of the community.
So Hume has come up with a possible solution. But first, a few definitions.
The official plan is a legal document, passed by a post-amalgamation city council in 2003 and given a major update last year. It calls for, among other things, intensification in some areas of the city. While the plan does give height limits for traditional and arterial mainstreets, it also contains vague language allowing developers to build higher if they meet certain conditions.
For example, they can ask for greater height if the development "fosters the creation of a community focus where the proposal is on a corner lot or if a higher building is compatible with the existing neighbourhood."
In addition to the official plan, there are also community design plans and secondary plans. These are sort of mini-versions of the OP (as those in the know call the official plan), that pertain to a specific area in the city. Unlike a community design plan -- which is a set of guidelines, not rules -- a secondary plan is a legal document that is fully part of the OP.
So here's Hume's blueprint for greater clarity.
First of all, he needs to be reelected as planning committee chairman. Membership in city council's standing committees is expected to be decided at the Dec. 15 council meeting. If Hume is not re-elected by his colleagues, it will be considered a major upset.
Once that's confirmed, Hume says the plan needs to be clearer about exactly when and where intensification is meant to be allowed. He also wants to update the existing zoning. Right now, it's a compilation of the zoning bylaws from the pre-amalgamation cities, just written together into one law. In many parts of the city, zoning does not match the official plan. Match zoning to plan, Hume's thinking goes, and developers will know not to even ask for exceptions, except in rare cases.
Hume says he'll be "proposing to strengthen the language in the main plan, but secondary plans and community design plans are very neighbourhood specific and therefore are best reviewed by the local councillor." To that end, he's suggesting that each councillor and their communities be given a chance "to determine if the heights in the local secondary or community design plan meets unique nature of each community."
It's a mammoth job that will take the new council's entire four-year term, maybe longer. But Hume believes it's worth it to repair a process that now "seems mysterious to most taxpayers."
Take the case of 793 Richmond Rd., a 15-storey condominium tower about halfway between Westboro to the east and Woodroffe Avenue to the west.
What is promising to be a hand some building from award-winning Charlesfort Developments was one of the first projects to come along after the OP was passed by council in 2003.
In a conflict that would play itself out a number of times over the next several years, the proposed project pitted the community against the developer, with the city trying to play referee.
The existing zoning for the area allowed for 13.8-metre high structures, or about four storeys. But the official plan called for intensification in the area, so the developer understandably expected a zoning variation for the property. That part of Richmond Road is deemed an "arterial main street," and the official plan at that time called for up to eight storeys on arterials.
So how did 793 Richmond end up being 15 storeys high?
Although the condo building towers over everything else in the vicinity, the developer argued that the building was compatible with the neighbourhood. City planners agreed. Neighbours did not.
If Hume has his way under his new proposal, the official plan would call for 10 storeys on that part of Richmond Road, period. The zoning for that height would have already been in place. The developer would have known that before purchasing the property, tailoring his bid accordingly.
"If the neighbours had known in advance that it was zoned for 10 storeys, would they have been happy?" says Hume. "Maybe not. But they would have known what was going to happen, and there'd be an acceptance of it."
If fact, he points out, he doesn't think that the changes he's proposing are going to please everyone.
"Most people resist change," Hume says, but it's coming. He hopes his proposals will help reduce the friction intensification inevitably brings.
He's facing a number of obstacles.
Because amendments to the official plan naturally get the full municipal-process treatment, there will likely be rounds of intense discussions with stakeholders and public consultations, not to mention legal arguments over any proposed changes.
Michael Polowin, an Ottawa lawyer who often represents local developers, professes skepticism about the plan. He says that a city's intensification plan requires flexibility to deal with things like site-specific issues, and the ever-changing trends in development.
"A city's growth is a fluid, living thing, it isn't written in granite," says Polowin. "People may look down on Merivale Road today, but not so many years ago it was considered the height of modernity."
The city's planning staffers are so far reserving formal comment. They haven't seen a formal submission yet from Hume. Privately, they favour some flexibility in the plan, but agree some of its language could be more prescriptive.
Some community leaders are cautiously optimistic.
Gary Ludington of the Westboro Village Community Association says developers want greater heights, especially in the north end of the city, because upper-level condos offer "tremendous views" of the Ottawa River and the Gatineau Hills. So he's not expecting that to abate any time soon.
"Maybe we can come up with something that's more definitive for everybody and it's not the developers having one view, city planners have something similar, and the community having another view and on and on," he says.
Hume doesn't pretend that exceptions would never happen, but says increases in height will be exactly that, exceptions rather than the rule.
"The goal of my proposals is to limit the amount of developer-driven rezoning and create an environment in which the building only needs a site plan or building permit."
Hume argues that more certainty is also better for developers, who he says get a bad rap when "a lot of it is the city's fault." Developers are simply doing what they usually do: build as much as is allowable. The city needs to make the rules clearer for everyone. Then if someone doesn't agree with it, they can work to try to change the policy.
Hume is quick to point out that he's not trying to pick on a certain developer by using 793 Richmond as an example of how intensification policies -- and projects -- have led to conflict in the community in last few years.
In fact, he says growth depends on more developments from respected companies like Charlesfort, "just with less controversy."
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/with+plan/3932578/story.html#ixzz17YTlzIna
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Unfortunately there is no way the city can dictate in subjective aesthetic issues like that. Technically the building is not decrepit, the finishing materials are just questionable in taste. Asking the property owner to change the cladding is like telling someone to change their clothes because you hate the way they look.
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