AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
From the Globe, by John Barber:
ZONING
Bylaws still crazy quilt after all these years
JOHN BARBER
April 15, 2009
The last time anybody mentioned zoning, it was part of the great cry that emerged like a billowing cloud following the explosion of Sunrise Propane in August, which killed one person, destroyed neighbouring bungalows and left the rest of us nervously scanning our own neighbourhoods for similar installations.
Blame centred on both provincial and municipal regulators, with the latter forced to admit that Toronto still had 43 separate zoning bylaws covering the city like a crazy quilt, with no consistent rules about separating facilities that handle dangerous substances from residential neighbourhoods. City officials begged for time, promising that the new unitary zoning bylaw they were working on would reconcile all contradictions and reflect "best practices."
But yesterday, when the same officials finally introduced the first version of the new bylaw (11 years after alleged amalgamation), last summer's big concern didn't arise once. Not one politician queried staff, spoke of or made a motion about proposed new separation distances for noxious industry, the whole reason zoning was invented a century ago. Instead, they spent almost the entire day digging for increasingly obscure reasons to keep 43 different, conflicting bylaws.
Among the largely suburban councillors who addressed planning committee yesterday, it would seem that nothing could be more outrageous than standardizing currently diverse methods of determining how tall a regular house can be.
The existing bylaws measure a little differently, meaning that currently permitted heights vary by as much as 1.5 metres from one neighbourhood to another. But changing that will ruin the city, they insisted. "In some neighbourhoods there are very specific ways of measuring heights, and that should not be lost," said Etobicoke Councillor Peter Milczyn.
Others fretted at length about the deleterious effects of similarly imperceptible changes to rules on the distances between houses. As for the proposal to adopt a single way to measure maximum density permitted on a residential lot - competing versions of which currently arrive at the same general result - you'd think the planners had asked a conclave of rabbis to shred the Talmud.
The idea that such picayune changes to local zoning will destroy "stable residential neighbourhoods" reflects a peculiar municipal madness, one largely confined to the most prosperous suburban neighbourhoods and transmitted with viral efficiency by their fearful representatives. In vain did officials point out yesterday that nothing has really changed, and that all the normal protections remain in place.
The most exciting aspect of the new zoning map is that it will be electronic: Click on your neighbourhood and you can discover exactly what's permitted at a single glance, something that would currently require a degree in library science to figure out. But led by Councillor Michael Walker, who boldly proclaimed his incapacity to use a computer, his colleagues fretted that the innovation would confuse more people than it would help.
Point and click? Save us! Save us!
In the end, they managed to hobble the new bylaw with enough meetings and consultations to push its implementation into the 22nd century. As a result, such politicians as Mr. Walker, Mr. Milczyn, Cliff Jenkins, John Parker and John Filion will have plenty of useless busywork over the next several years to help them kill time at city hall. The upside is that serious figures will have a free hand to tackle real issues.
jbarber@globeandmail.com
AoD
ZONING
Bylaws still crazy quilt after all these years
JOHN BARBER
April 15, 2009
The last time anybody mentioned zoning, it was part of the great cry that emerged like a billowing cloud following the explosion of Sunrise Propane in August, which killed one person, destroyed neighbouring bungalows and left the rest of us nervously scanning our own neighbourhoods for similar installations.
Blame centred on both provincial and municipal regulators, with the latter forced to admit that Toronto still had 43 separate zoning bylaws covering the city like a crazy quilt, with no consistent rules about separating facilities that handle dangerous substances from residential neighbourhoods. City officials begged for time, promising that the new unitary zoning bylaw they were working on would reconcile all contradictions and reflect "best practices."
But yesterday, when the same officials finally introduced the first version of the new bylaw (11 years after alleged amalgamation), last summer's big concern didn't arise once. Not one politician queried staff, spoke of or made a motion about proposed new separation distances for noxious industry, the whole reason zoning was invented a century ago. Instead, they spent almost the entire day digging for increasingly obscure reasons to keep 43 different, conflicting bylaws.
Among the largely suburban councillors who addressed planning committee yesterday, it would seem that nothing could be more outrageous than standardizing currently diverse methods of determining how tall a regular house can be.
The existing bylaws measure a little differently, meaning that currently permitted heights vary by as much as 1.5 metres from one neighbourhood to another. But changing that will ruin the city, they insisted. "In some neighbourhoods there are very specific ways of measuring heights, and that should not be lost," said Etobicoke Councillor Peter Milczyn.
Others fretted at length about the deleterious effects of similarly imperceptible changes to rules on the distances between houses. As for the proposal to adopt a single way to measure maximum density permitted on a residential lot - competing versions of which currently arrive at the same general result - you'd think the planners had asked a conclave of rabbis to shred the Talmud.
The idea that such picayune changes to local zoning will destroy "stable residential neighbourhoods" reflects a peculiar municipal madness, one largely confined to the most prosperous suburban neighbourhoods and transmitted with viral efficiency by their fearful representatives. In vain did officials point out yesterday that nothing has really changed, and that all the normal protections remain in place.
The most exciting aspect of the new zoning map is that it will be electronic: Click on your neighbourhood and you can discover exactly what's permitted at a single glance, something that would currently require a degree in library science to figure out. But led by Councillor Michael Walker, who boldly proclaimed his incapacity to use a computer, his colleagues fretted that the innovation would confuse more people than it would help.
Point and click? Save us! Save us!
In the end, they managed to hobble the new bylaw with enough meetings and consultations to push its implementation into the 22nd century. As a result, such politicians as Mr. Walker, Mr. Milczyn, Cliff Jenkins, John Parker and John Filion will have plenty of useless busywork over the next several years to help them kill time at city hall. The upside is that serious figures will have a free hand to tackle real issues.
jbarber@globeandmail.com
AoD
