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More time needed to grasp proposed zoning bylaw
JOHN FILION Ward 23 Councillor
I’D LIKE TO be able to warn you about how the city’s proposed new zoning bylaw might affect you, but it is virtually impossible for anyone who isn’t a professional planner, to pore over more than 1,000 pages of proposed changes and maps, to figure it out.
Case in point: only after asking multiple questions about a proposed commercial category did I discover that it was proposed that anyone living on a side street, immediately adjacent to Willowdale Avenue between Sheppard and Hollywood Avenues, could have a commercial building erected right up to their property line.
Puzzled? Me too, on a subject that will have some impact, large or small, innocuous or toxic, on every property in the city.
Several years ago, city planning staff was given the go-ahead to standardize definitions contained in the myriad of zoning bylaws brought into the amalgamated City of Toronto from North York and the other former cities. Then, despite assurances to the contrary, it turned into a “harmonization” exercise, i.e., let’s make the rules the same: if new homes on 50-foot lots can be built three or four feet away from the neighbour’s property line in most parts of the city, let’s make the same rule for Willowdale (where, generally, a six-foot side yard is now required).
The proposed changes were designed neither to assist builders nor residents, but the city bureaucrats who administer the rules. I’d like to hold a meeting to flush out what’s in the proposals, but the one I scheduled was cancelled because of the strike. The staff report proposing changes based on public comments is scheduled to be written by Labour Day.
I have asked that the process be pushed back, to allow the public to understand what’s being proposed but, as of mid-July, have not received that assurance.
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