21 replies to this topic

[rjcedar]

The Esquimalt Council 6-1 decision to allow a Muslim church in a commercial zone required amending a bylaw that applies to all the commercial core. This includes assembly use. Can anyone see why this is a bad land use decision, besides the one councillor that voted against it?

Municipal councils make land use decisions, which is their key role and affects whole community futures. What kind of alternate future ripples will this ill-conceived policy shift bring down on the Esquimalt commercial zone? Will allowing assemblies in the commercial core cause friction with the business community?

Some may see this as a scale issue…a little is ok. But the policy shift is permanent and applies to the whole commercial core forever.

This is a land use issue, nothing to do with religion. Why would council stray to accommodate a special interest group (religion) at the expense of the greater public good? Not to appear discriminatory? This is a weak reason ….land use planning, if stuck to, is discriminatory. Those applying to break policy are refused because the policy was established to support well thought out objectives in the first place. Those rationales are what define how our communities evolve.

Look at the parallel happening in Langford where council is entertaining the idea of buying ALR! This is not a bad municipal council land use policy, rather a bad municipal council management policy. Metchosen council advise to Langford is that they are already preserving farmland by saying to developers that this is farm land, full stop. Respect the allocation (zoning) and move on. Period.

Same with tinkering with the Esquimalt commercial core policies, in the interest of not appearing discriminatory. The zoning is the zoning, full stop, go to appropriately zoned areas.

Avoid spot rezoning. If there are not enough appropriate areas, pro-actively zone a few with public process on where these functions should be located. Maintain land use integrity so activities are complimentary and do not lead us into unnecessary friction, and a poorer future.

Council members should be appraised for their vision and policy integrity re land use zoning before casting your vote.

[G-Man]

To be honest I am not against spot zoning. In fact when you are working with extremely out of date land use plans they are a necessity. The specific item that you have brought up will in many ways help diversify a stagnant commercial area and in addition bring a new sector of the public into the surviving commercial businesses.

Also I do think this needs to be moved to the politcal forum so perhap if the mod sees this they can shift it please.

[renthefinn]

Zoning, shouldn't be set in stone, what's good for the area when the zone was established, is not necessarily the best use of the site today. Some people believe current zoning should rule all things, while oppose this stance.

[Caramia]

If the building is underused or vacant, or the owner has had trouble renting at market value, (which as I understand was the case here) and someone wants to do something vibrant in it, imo it is foolish to block them based on zoning. There are too many buildings standing empty for no reason other than technicalities. There is nothing more destructive to a city than vacancy, especially in a commercial area. I think they made the right decison, and that surrounding businesses will benefit from the influx of temple goers.

[Scaper]

^ and parking lots too.

[Bluster]

Seems especially goofy to me too, given the Township is beginning to explore a more comprehensive strategy to the Town Centre. Go to the thread I just started on the subject to comment further.

On the other hand, I think that when buildings have been unused for long periods of time, rezoning for a viable use is not a bad idea, especially one that brings more people into the Town Centre to patronize our businesses. I would probably agree that spot re-zoning isn't effective in encouraging furture development, as developers don't really know where the goalposts are. Councils should set some guidelines as to what type of rezoning they would consider acceptable.

[Mike K.]

Or, not necessarily zoning that council would consider "acceptable," but zoning that acts as a guide.

Goal post planning oftentimes becomes dated before development proposals pour in (I'm pretty sure someone mentioned this on the forum today or yesterday -- good point nonetheless!).

Councils react when development takes place and implement plans a few years after they feel the pressure to exert effort. The next "boom" of sorts then has to deal with zoning that applied to a previous "boom/flood/frenzy/spike, etc"and the process of bickering starts anew. The 1990 Victoria Ddowntown and the mid-90's Harris Green plans are perfect examples of planning guidelines that no longer apply to present development realities.

[Galvanized]

I cleaned this thread up, lets's stay on topic people! Lets keep it to Municipal Councils and Land Use Planning. Thanks!

[captain highliner]

The days of rigid single use zoning are dead. When governments attempt to be too proscriptive in mandating what kinds of usages are acceptable in a given area it has the effect of killing an area's vibrancy. A city is the sum total of the dynamic processes of creative distruction that occur within it over time.

No municipal politician is so wise as to be able to determine the future of a place as a single use zone for all time. It's as if a modern day king Canute was ordering the tide to cease it's ebb and flow. This illustrates the danger inherent in rigid planning that aims to fix the urban organism as a steady state entity; as soon as an organism ceases to grow and change, it dies.

[G-Man]

That is a great summary Cap'n!

I agree we can guide the city in our present time but that does not mean that in the future our decisions will not seem wrong and bizarre.

The same works when looking at the decisions and plans that were created by the city 10 to 15 years ago. The city should always be looked at in its present context.

[Mike K.]

Precisely. So long story short, the new downtown plan will be the 1990 plan with politically correct catchphrases and a plethora of more rules and regulations, albeit slightly relaxed in some areas and constrained in others.

This was one of the major concerns that the public had at the second downtown planning session.

[captain highliner]

I hear what you're saying, Derf. One part of the vision document that I picked up at the meeting gave me some hope though. There's a section on flexibility that says things like: "Downtown is a work in progress and will continue to evolve." Further on "To create an innovative regulatory environment" is listed as a "goal". What this all means is up for debate. We have an opportunity in this process to help define these terms.

[G-Man]

You are trying to find concrete meaning in a policy document from bureaucrats in Victoria?



Oh well I hope your right

[Urbalist]

The zoning is the zoning, full stop, go to appropriately zoned areas.

Avoid spot rezoning. If there are not enough appropriate areas, pro-actively zone a few with public process on where these functions should be located. Maintain land use integrity so activities are complimentary and do not lead us into unnecessary friction, and a poorer future.

Sorry my friend, but anyone who can be in a state of being against spot zoning declares themselves to be a rookie. I say that with all respect; I don't know you, and you seem to share some beliefs with me, but spot-zoning will be one of those notions that you'll do a 180. The tag 'spot-zoning' seems spotty because it sounds spotty. My usual test is to ask these people to define it, and that's when they stumble. Badly.

First off, if you've encountered a bad land-use decision - perhaps one that involved a spot zone - don't blame the tool. No one has ever blamed a horrible reno job on the hammer and skil saw which were used. Blame the process, blame the decision-makers, but don't blame the tool.

A spot-zone is a custom zone. It is a site-specific zone. And when they are crafted at the time of proposal, the uses, densities and dimensional regulations (heights, setbacks) are shrink-wrapped around the proposal, so that any notable changes in the future requires a review to ensure everything still works. What's bizarre is that a 'spot zone' actually provides the certainty that is demanded by anti-spot-zoners.

What's the opposite of spot-zoning I ask them? They say, "well, existing zones." Ok, pre-established, off the shelf, right? "Yup!" Written originally in a zoning bylaw 20 years ago and patched with bits of regulations as Councils come and go and as specific issues become problems and need afixin. Like old software.

The 'spot' relates to a single parcel of land. The opposite is bloc-zoning. That is a one-size-fits-all lots, regardless of when the lots were created, how they've developed over the decades, and what is their relational context to other lots and uses. One zone; 200 lots. Think about it.

Uniform, bloc zoning may work well in suburban areas such as Saanich where fair conformity is desired, but as a community and it's buildings age, the richness and variety of land use is ill-served by a handful of zones; three or four residential types, a couple commercial, maybe one-size-fits-all industrial.

Look at newer, rural municipalities; Metchosin, Highlands, etc. Just a handful of zones is all they need. Look at cities a thousand years old. The most beautiful, serene, human cities in the world. They are beyond mere zoning. In Europe, the city planners are far more concerned about urban morphology; the mass, siting, access and facades of buildings. They've long realized that a single building that is 350 years old has seen many uses - often mixed (res & business) - and will so in the future. Zoning is not the tool to use. There, the emphasis is more on performance standards - not what is the use, but how you use it, whatever you use it for - so licensing and taxing are used much more than the parent-child regulation of zoning. And it works.

We simply do not have the mechanisms in local government to crystal ball all the myriad uses - small business, etc - and anticipate their land use needs - locationally (where), and usage (what), and then, to slap land use restrictions on private properties before their future and new uses emerge. Even the land use industry and the people who invest in it cannot accurately predict with this precision.

Sure, the land use industry realizes that there is some uncertainty with a site-specific zoning process, but there simply is no other process or tool, at the local, democratized level that exceeds the results - for all parties - of custom zoning. Thanks for reading.

[gumgum]

So what's with the bold?

[Urbalist]

A courtesy for those who have poor eyesight, poor screens, or poor lighting. Oh, also the italicization stands out much better. That's all. Just courtesy. No agenda, no ego. Just thinking of others in communicating to them.

[gumgum]

Eh? :wink: :-D

[Mike K.]

Yikes, the bold actually makes it harder for me to read. Maybe because the letters are closer together or perhaps because I'm not used to it.

Just saying... 8)


Btw, there is a text size option in browsers for folks with poor eyesite. If traditional text doesn't blend well with the background for some folks, one tool is selecting all of the text with your mouse which gives it a darker background as its read.

[Ms. B. Havin]

Ok, nearly dead thread, but I thought this is as good a place to post this as starting a new one...

There's an article in today's paper that has me shaking my head: [url=http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=72cba9ce-cbe3-4350-9e2d-b356db98efc1&k=77493:269dc]Bed-and-breakfast operator's efforts pay off as council makes suite legal[/url:269dc]. Here's why: all the time we hear these admonitions from our councillors about the evils of spot rezoning, and some neighbourhood association board members have taken up that drum, to beat it loudly and incessantly about everyone's heads. Meanwhile, some of us have been saying, "no wait, you have it all wrong! There's nothing wrong with spot rezoning if it's done because the zoning that's in place is stupid/ wrong/ inappropriate to begin with!" (See Urbalist's comment, a [url=http://vibrantvictoria.ca/forum/posting.php?mode=reply&f=10&t=415#pr13624:269dc]couple of comments up[/url:269dc] -- he puts it very very well!)

Yet what do my pink eyes see in today's paper? Nothing other than Councillor Madoff and JBNEA board member (land use chair, even!) Tim Van Alstine championing what essentially is spot rezoning! Could it be that they have FINALLY seen the light?

No, that would be too much to hope for. Never in a million years, I expect, would we see this level of sanity in regard to evil greedy ass developer capitalist dogs out to make a profit. But pity the poor small-business homeowner who just wants to have a bed & breakfast to augment his mortgage, since, as Van Alstine puts it, "Let's be realistic about this. This is not a community that the average person can purchase an average home." For that poor schmuck, we'll allow a bit of spot rezoning, because a few dollars isn't as bad as many dollars.

Puerile thinking at its best, I'd say. Really: you get the impression that they think it's ok because this guy is making just a few bucks, but if it were a developer and real money were at stake, they'd rather burn him at the stake than consider ..."spot rezoning."

Here's the article, and note the bolded bits ("unique R2-E zone" sounds like spot rezoning to me...):

Bed-and-breakfast operator's efforts pay off as council makes suite legal
Building will have to be brought in line with building code

Carolyn Heiman
Times Colonist

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Dan Pedrick says he didn't set out to convert a garage into a bed-and-breakfast suite.

"Over the years, I did a little bit here and a little bit there," he said of the building where he once housed carriages for a horse-drawn-carriage business. "I didn't sit down one day and say, 'Um, I'm going to fix this up without the city's approval.' "

At one point, his daughters lived in the accessory building on his James Bay property and did a little more fixing up. "One day it looked pretty darn good."

So good, in fact, that in 1992, he advertised online that it was available to rent along with his other bed-and-breakfast rooms at 596 Toronto St.

Soon after, a city bylaw officer came knocking to tell Pedrick he was breaking city rules.

"I don't know how they found out about it, but then again, I was screaming from the roof through my website. [Still] I wasn't worried about it because I had the feeling that the city wasn't all that concerned about it. But things changed and they came around and told me the jig was up and I had to be compliant."

This week, after a year-long process that cost Pedrick about $10,000, the bed-and-breakfast suite was made legal by Victoria city council, which approved a unique R2-E zone on his land, allowing him to use the building for transient accommodation.

Not one person spoke against the change. "If I had one neighbour who was mad at me, it would have been different," Pedrick said.

The speakers who did address council urged politicians to be more open-minded about converting garages and other accessory buildings into accommodation.

Mark Pakenham urged council to approve the use as a way to preserve green space and allow owners to age in place, by giving them the option of living in smaller-scale homes while renting out their main houses.

Designer Nigel Banks told council dozens of small buildings throughout the city are being used creatively with little impact, urging the city to develop a conversion policy.

But Coun. Pam Madoff said she's more comfortable looking at accessory-building conversions on a case-by-case basis, rather than "creating a sense of entitlement" through a policy.

Coun. Geoff Young agreed, saying council should have an opportunity to determine if a neighbour's privacy would be affected. If the city develops a policy on conversions, it has to be done in consultation with neighbors, he added.
Edit: Well, well: Madoff and Young on record in favour of spot rezoning -- not blanket rezoning!! Who would have believed it?

Tim Van Alstine, chairman of the James Bay Neighbourhood Environment Association, estimates 30 accessory buildings in his community have been converted into living space. Only two or three are legal -- a city planner says only about six throughout the city are legal.

But garage and other accessory-building conversions are a growing issue. Van Alstine said the neighbourhood association looked at an application for an Oswego Street conversion this week that will likely come to council later.

City staff say about six times a year they're alerted about an illegal conversion, but twice as often, callers ask whether they can do it legally, only to find out they can't.

Even a few years ago, an application like Pedrick's would have had neighbourhood associations up in arms. But Van Alstine says his views have softened over the years, and skyrocketing housing prices have played a role.

"Let's be realistic about this. This is not a community that the average person can purchase an average home."

Edit: d'urr, it'd be nice if he applied his new-found economic understanding to projects that are slightly larger than garages...

Still, he says, not every accessory building is appropriate for conversion and the city needs to come up with guidelines outlining where they shouldn't be allowed, with infringement on neighbours' privacy a key consideration.

"Once you're into outbuildings, you are into zero lot-line clearance. For the lack of a better statement, it is in your face."

Pedrick has been told the bed-and-breakfast suite window bordering on his neighbour's property will have to go.

And the building will have to be brought in line with the new building code, in-cluding use of fireproof materials on walls on the property line.

Because he made the changes without a permit, he also had to stop using the suite as a bed-and-breakfast unit this spring while the application was winding its way to a public hearing.

"I admitted I was a bad boy. But now I want to be a good boy," Pedrick said yesterday.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007

I don't begrudge the guy his rezoning, not at all. I'm just gob-smacked by the councillors and by the neighbourhood association rep's talk, because I know they would never be able to break free of their carved-in-stone mind-sets if an important development were at stake versus some dinky bed & breakfast. But that's part of the problem with municipal leadership here: they get it when it's dinky, but as soon as it's slightly bigger than dinky-poo, it's utterly beyond their grasp.

[G-Man]

I saw that too and it riled me up. I also think the guy deserves the rezoning but as I ciontinually point out why is it that most of the CAs can be consistent in their strange decisions but JB is constantly falling over it self to say one thing one day and a different thing the next? Drives me nuts which just further points to this assoc just working for those that participate and not the community as a whole.