Quote:
Originally Posted by McC
Isn't the idea that if a developer wants to exceed the zoning/planning by 2.5 times that there should be some kind of public benefit in the deal?
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I would normally agree, but...
The problem with most zoning in Ottawa is that most of it simply reflects current land uses and not what could be. When you dig through zoning of established areas, where no building has occurred in decades, you find the zoning reflects what is there and nothing more. If a particular piece of land has a slightly taller building, then it has a higher height limit, if the one next door is lower, the height limit is lower. There is no reason why two properties side by side have different height limits in zoning.
The number of one-off properties in Ottawa's land zoning is amazing. There is no reason why properties should be zoned on this one by one basis. When on an application like this, the whole block should be zoned. Whether different owners want to develop the additional height is there business.
If we zoned land more on it's potential, rather than what happens to be sitting there currently, we would not be having this debate every time someone wants to build anything. We do far too much rezoning in this city - this to me is a sign we don't have our zoning right in the first place.