People Plan Toronto

by David Godley

Zoning Harmonisation might sound benign, but it would be controversial if it was not flying under the radar.

The idea was simply to standardise the zoning bylaws of the six constituent municipalities which became the City of Toronto.  But in addition to administrative changes such as rationalising definitions, staff embarked on radical changes to zoning categories in an effort to make usage categories standard across the city as well.  This substantially increased densities in some neighbourhoods and reduced densities in others.  This would have changed the character of neighbourhoods contrary to the Official Plan.  Councillor Walker sponsored a series of meetings with City staff at the request of Cathie Macdonald from PPT, where resident group representatives and private sector planners worked together to resolve these and other issues.  Some members of the group continue to raise questions about some aspects of the proposals, though many concerns have been resolved.

The draft bylaw now is supposed to reflect existing requirements in one huge bylaw. However, unless you are a planner or lawyer who works with the zoning in Toronto you are unlikely to be able to figure out anything, because it is so complex. All that has been done is to produce the draft – no changes are listed or impacts given.  So the real consequences of this harmonization exercise are yet to be understood.

The City wishes to have the bylaw finalised before the election and has scheduled an Open House on August 11 for 2pm to 8pm in Room 310, Metro Hall and the statutory public meeting on August 19  in Ciity Hall as soon after 10am as possible for submissions.

Come to the Open House on August 11 to find out more about how the proposed bylaw will affect your neighbourhood and property. Contact the City Clerk for further details and to be listed as a deputant on the 19^th by emailing pgmc@toronto.ca.  In particular, if you think that you or an organization you belong to may wish to  challenge any  aspect of the by-law before the Ontario Municipal Board, note that you must make submissions or a deputation to City Council before it is passed.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 9th, 2010 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.