Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
I personally think that HRM zoning regulations should be overhauled. There is no point to having institutional zones, for example. A seniors' complex is about the most innocuous thing somebody could build.
The same thing goes for a lot of zoning distinctions between residential and office or even light industrial - not necessary.
|
I agree and disagree with you on this one. I agree that the regulations should be overhauled. If you look - I believe there currently stands 23 zoning bylaws for HRM - all the various districts. Halifax has the old peninsula and mainland Bylaws, while Dartmouth has one for the downtown and then one for overwhere else, then one for Eastern Passage/Cowbay I believe. So certainly an overhaul and consolidation would be helpful; as I suspect the rural ones match up quite well (since they would've come from the Halifax County prior to immalgimation).
As to eliminating instiutional zones and distinctions between residential and say office or light industrial - I disagree. The problem here lies in the fact many of these bylaws are old and lack definitions for things - in this case, institutional use is allowed but not defined. So I'm not surprised they had some issue with this - because they probably thought 'what the heck does this use mean?'.
The age of many of these bylaws causes problems with modern day working concepts such as mixed use - but to remove seperations between industrial and residential is probably not going to happen. But it could be done much like Calgary's I-E (Industrial - Edge) district - which typically is on the edge of older industrial areas, which buffers industrial uses from low density residential. It's typically more commercial or non-obnoxious uses that wouldn't create odur or vibrations, etc.