I agree about the viewplane and ramparts provisions. Personally (and I'm putting my urban planner hat on now), I'd like to see a chronology of events occur:
- First - get the regional centre plan and land use bylaw completed, approved and in operation. Provide reports back to council every year on development that has been approved each year within the regional centre (value of building permits, type of developments, etc). On the second, fourth and fifth years provide a house keeping amendment to the plan and bylaw to keep it up to date, correct mistakes etc. Then report back every 5 years, but do housekeeping as needed.
- Then begin a study on the effects of the ship building contract and oil exploration and examine the population increases over the last 10 years and chart the projected trends. Use this information, economic projects and other information to convince council to support either a significant 'overhaul' of the regional plan or a complete scrapping of the current one and doing a new one (I'll talk more about this in a second). Start out with a visioning exercise and once council approves that vision, write a regional plan to implement it with clear targets and implementation strategies to see the plan achieved (you know - the helpful things like having a regional transportation plan with your regional plan so you can tie land use and transportation decisions together!). It would be at this stage, we ask the tough questions about viewplanes. Then based on public feedback - include it in the vision and the RP.
- While a regional plan is done, begin work on a consolidated, regional land use bylaw. This can be as one bylaw, or one bylaw in two parts - rural and urban (regional centre and suburban). The Bylaw would be designed to implement the approved regional plan and vision for HRM. Here is where the viewplanes would change in terms of regulations.
The problem we have with the viewplanes is that there hasn't been a good visioning exercise that has asked the tough questions about what we want to be as a city, when we grow up (so to speak). HbD and the regional centre plan are great pieces of work, but it's very easy for staff to say it's not part of the scope of an exercise (I've done it countless times, so I'm definitely the pot calling the kettle here). But I think we all seem to agree, at some point the question of the viewplanes and the rules around them (and their value) has to be asked.
So why not ask those questions when doing a new vision for the city? Take advantage of this new optimism and look at a new regional plan. No plan is perfect and the plan that is in place is okay but it didn't foresee the ship building contract. That begs the question of whether we tweak the old one or overhaul it. Plus not having a transportation plan, with your regional plan, is a significant missed opportunity because transit $ may not be being spent the land use would be the most intense.
I'll get off my soap box, but that's my feeling on the viewplane issue. The question should be asked and if there is a clear opinion from consultation that some aspects aren't worth value - then maybe we do get rid of them? I suspect most people don't know about the rampart rule.
The other side of the coin is, if certain things have value - do we have to do it the same was as we are doing now? Meaning - if we don't want buildings up against a viewplane - is there a different way of protecting those views and not boxing them in rather than just simply saying no? Like say a setback as you go up in height?
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