Council still debating first phase of LUB

Talks will continue at next Monday’s meeting

By Larissa Barlow

Posted 2 years ago

Town council is still working on giving second reading to the land use bylaw review after another long debating session on details of the planning document.

Council spent the majority of their Dec. 14 meeting discussing the first phase of the bylaw, passing several motions, though leaving the door open to change any of those decisions in future talks.

As for changes, council voted to throw out administration recommendations regarding side yard setbacks. The land use bylaw review team had proposed shrinking the allowable distance between homes to encourage development and using up as much space as possible on a lot, but the majority of council felt it was too much. Only Coun. John Gibson and Mayor John Stutz voted in favour of the new setback regulations, which were different for each land use district in town. The current side yard setbacks will remain in effect throughout the town.

A larger debate was held on the allowable Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in town, as administration was proposing it increase 30 per cent in each land use district.

Several amendments were made to cut that number down — all failing to get support — before council eventually agreed to reduce it to 20 per cent.

Coun. Leslie Taylor was adamant that 30 per cent was too large a jump.

She said she'd looked how that would affect her own land use district, and found it would be the equivalent of another entire house on each lot.

"We may create a situation where someone lives beside a very large neighbour — a very large neighbour who moved in because we were a little over enthusiastic," she said.

Coun. Chris MacDonald felt the lower number would be enough to spur on development.

"We do want to encourage development but 30 percent seems like it's a bit over the top," she said. "There's a lot of run down old buildings that need redevelopment and I think 20 percent plus the (other land use bylaw) changes will do it."

Despite voting for an amendment to reduce the FAR to a 20 percent increase, Taylor voted against passing the motion as a whole, feeling the number was still too high.

"We also will pay a price for this increase in the economics of redevelopment and the price we'll pay will be in the aesthetics of our nieghbourhoods," she said, suggesting in the future they may regret opening the door to a larger FAR.

Other issues, like alternative transportation and land rezoning have yet to be discussed.

They will both likely come up at the next council meeting, scheduled for Dec. 21.