Slide 1

Hello- Welcome to the Commercial, Employment and Institutional Zones information session. My name is Abby Watts and I am the Project Manager of the CZBR. I’m here today with Joan Jylanne and Andrew Sandor. 

We will be recording today’s session to post on the virtual open house webpage for those who are unable to attend the live sessions.  

I will provide a 15-minute presentation that gives an overview of the commercial, employment and institutional zones and other regulations that impact these properties.  

The rest of the time today will be reserved for your questions and comments. Once the presentation is over, Andrew will provide instructions for how to ask a question. You can also type a question in the chat box at any time during the presentation. 

Slide 2

For the agenda today:

• We will go over the project timeline
• We will take a step back to review what a zoning bylaw is.
• I will provide an overview of commercial, employment and institutional zones 
• And the rest of the time will be dedicated to questions and comments from attendees. 

Slide 3

• The zoning bylaw review consists of 5 phases as shown on this slide
• We are currently at the end of Phase 3, which includes the preparation, presentation, and community consultation of the draft zoning bylaw
• The last part of phase 3 is community consultation which will take place from now until December 20. Council is not making a decision on the bylaw at this point.
• Phase 4 of the project includes a statutory public meeting and a decision meeting at Council which is anticipated to be completed in 2022

Slide 4

What is a zoning bylaw?

A zoning bylaw is a set of rules that tell us:

• How land can be used
• Where buildings, structures and parking can be located
• The size of buildings, structures, and lots, and, 
• How much parking is required for a use.

Slide 5

• In Ontario we have a planning hierarchy
• We need to comply with the Ontario Planning Act and Provincial Policy 
• On a local level we have our Official Plan which consists of a number of policies that represent the City’s vision for growth and development in the city
• And then there’s the Zoning Bylaw which is a set of rules that implements our Official Plan policies and Provincial Policy
• Our Zoning Bylaw must conform to these documents.

• This means that some aspects of the Zoning bylaw are not up for debate. For example, we cannot zone a property commercial that is designated residential in the Official Plan. 

• The proposed ZBL implements the current Official Plan. 

Slide 6

The draft zoning bylaw is divided into 6 parts and 19 sections. 

The parts include:

• Administration and interpretation- this is the legal component that sets up how the bylaw works
• Definitions
• General provisions and parking
• The Land use zones
• Site-specific provisions and zones, and the
• Zoning schedules- which is the maps and overlays

Slide 7

• Today we are talking mixed-use, commercial, employment and institutional zones. 

• The draft new zoning bylaw makes clear connections between the new zones and Official Plan designations and generally reduces the number of zones to simplify the bylaw

• The Official Plan broadly determines what is permitted in these zones, including what use or building type is permitted, how tall buildings can be and what the minimum and maximum density can be

• We’ve introduced 4 mixed-use zones, including commercial mixed-use centre, mixed-use corridor, neighborhood commercial centre, and mixed office/commercial. 

• We’ve further simplified the Mixed-use Corridor zone from the recommendation of the discussion paper. We’ve created one zone instead of three that allows the full range of uses to ensure the zone allows a mix of residential, institutional and commercial uses. Residential and institutional properties within the mixed-use corridor designation are zoned the applicable residential and institutional zones to ensure we don’t require commercial development on those properties. 

Slide 8

• The draft ZBL includes 2 commercial zones.

• We have simplified the Service Commercial zone, consolidating SC.1 and SC.2 into one zone in the new Bylaw. 

• We’ve added a new Convenience commercial zone to recognize existing small-scale commercial within residential neighbourhoods.