Report to / Rapport au:

Planning and Development Committee /

Comité de l’urbanisme et de l’aménagement

and Council / et au Conseil

16 September 2002 / 19 février 2002

Submitted by / Soumis par: Ned Lathrop, General Manager / Directeur général

Development Services Department / Services d’aménagement

Contact / Personne-ressource: Karen Currie, Manager, Development Approvals /

Gestionnaire, Approbation des demandes d’aménagement

244-5300 ext. 28310 karen.currie@ottawa.ca

Ref N°: ACS2002-DEV-APR-0206

SUBJECT: ZONING ‑ HOUSEKEEPING AMENDMENT TO THE FORMER CITY OF CUMBERLAND ZONING BY-LAW

OBJET: Zonage ‑ Modification d’ordre administratif au Règlement MUNICIPAL de zonage de l’ancienne ville de Cumberland

REPORT RECOMMENDATION

That the Planning and Development Committee recommend that Council approve an amendment to the former City of Cumberland Urban Zoning By-law to make textual corrections to Section 7.3 (c) of the By-law as detailed in Document 1.

RECOMMANDATION DU RAPPORT

Que le Comité de l’urbanisme et de l’aménagement recommande au Conseil municipal d’approuver une modification au Règlement municipal de zonage urbain de l’ancienne ville de Cumberland afin de corriger le texte de la Section 7.3 (c) du Règlement tel que décrit dans le Document 1.

BACKGROUND

In June 2002, staff initiated an application to amend the Urban Zoning By-law of the former City of Cumberland. The purpose of the application is to perform a “housekeeping amendment” to correct and provide clarification to certain provisions of Section 7.3(c), which is the CC-X1 zoning (Commercial Community – Exception One). The proposed modifications do not involve any amendment to the Zoning By-law maps, only corrections to the textual elements of the Section are being recommended.

The CC-X1 zoning exists at the southeast corner of Innes Road and Tenth Line Road, where it specifically applies to the Trinity Commons development and to the southwest corner of Innes Road and Tenth Line Road where it affects certain portions of the Billberry Creek Industrial Park. A third grouping of properties at the southwest corner of Innes Road and Lanthier Road is also zoned CC-X1. Document 2 highlights the lands zoned CC-X1. The zone does not currently apply to any other site in the former municipality.

DISCUSSION

At the time the CC-X1 zoning was created, it was designed to be applied to the Trinity Commons shopping centre development. One of the reasons the exception zoning was approved was to allow, in addition to the broad range of retail, commercial and office uses permitted under the parent CC zoning, a “Restaurant, Open Air”. The CC-X1 zoning also allowed for exceptions to the minimum front yard and external side yard setbacks whereby these setbacks can be reduced if the architecture and/or use of the buildings facing the public road provide for a building front. This was done to encourage improved architectural design along the arterial roads. As well, the CC-X1 zoning implemented exceptions to the location of loading areas, reduction in the number of required parking spaces for garden centers and an allowance to treat the land as one lot for zoning purposes. This last provision was to ensure continued conformity with the by-law after the property was severed into individual properties (i.e. Home Depot, Loeb) after development.

In November of 2000, certain portions of the Bilberry Creek Business Park were rezoned from MS (industrial) to CC-X1. This was as a result of Official Plan Amendment No. 33 which implemented amendments to the commercial and industrial policies of the Cumberland Official Plan and further, it redesignated certain areas of the Billberry Creek Business Park from “Mixed Use Business Park” to “Community Commercial” to address the commercial market demands for the area of Orleans.

When the CC-X1 zoning was created, it was done under the assumption that it would be applying to one property, under one ownership. However, the portions of the Bilberry Creek Industrial Park, in which the CC-X1 zoning has since been expanded to, are not under one ownership, but in fact are individual properties as small as 5100 m² and some of these parcels are separated from one another by public roads. The proposed amendment is being brought forward at this time, as there are now individual property owners who wish to move forward to develop their properties under the commercial zoning, but are precluded from doing so because certain requirements of the CC-X1 zoning are making their properties undevelopable on their own. The proposed amendment will correct some of the provisions of the CC-X1 zoning which will enable it to be applied to the subject areas of the Bilberry Creek Business Park in keeping with Official Plan Amendment No. 33.

There are basically three modifications that are being made to the Zoning By-law. The first modification involves an amendment to subsection (ii) of Section 7.3 (c) which is the portion dealing with reductions to the required front yard and external side yard requirements if the architecture of the building provides a building front adjacent to the street. Staff are recommending that the references to Innes Road and Tenth Line Road be removed and replaced with “the street abutting the front yard” and “the street abutting the external side yard” to allow for the provision to be applied to properties where the front and external side yards are adjacent to streets other than Innes Road and Tenth Line Road.

The second modification involves subsection (v) of Section 7.3 (c), which refers to all lands zoned CC-X1 being treated as one lot for zoning purposes. A literal interpretation of this clause would mean that the total lot coverage and maximum gross leasable floor area would apply collectively to all three areas. Since the lands on the east side of Tenth Line Road have already been developed with about 30,000 m² gross leasable floor area, this would mean that the two areas on the west side of Tenth Line Road together could only have about 5000 m² of development. There is also a problem in determining lot lines for this ‘single lot’. Since there are roads and intervening properties between the three areas, there is no logical way to assign the various lot lines for determining yard provisions. There is also the potential for required loading spaces to be provided on a lot other than where the building is located. The appropriate interpretation of this provision is that all contiguously zoned lands not separated by a road are considered as a single lot. This interpretation would result in four separate CC-X1 zones. Staff are recommending that the word “contiguous” be added to subsection (v) for better clarification on its intent.

The third modification that will be made to the CC-X1 zoning applies to the minimum gross leasable floor area requirements. Under the parent CC zoning provisions, the maximum gross leasable floor area is 35, 000 m² and the minimum gross leasable floor area is 10,000 m^2. Given the appropriate interpretation of subsection (v) in that all contiguous land (not separated by a road) zoned CC-X1 shall be treated as a single lot for zoning purposes, the lands on the west side of Tenth Line Road could not reasonably be developed in compliance with the minimum gross leasable floor area requirement of the By-law and therefore cannot be developed as zoned. It is therefore proposed that the amendment remove the minimum gross leasable floor area requirement for all the lands zoned CC-X1. This is in keeping with Official Plan Amendment No. 33, which does not specify a minimum floor area requirement and refers to “community commercial” sites as containing a variety of formats including a shopping center and small-scale stand-alone facilities.

To further assist in describing the affect of the proposed amendment, Document 3 illustrates the three groupings of properties, west of Tenth Line Road, which would each be treated as a single lot for zoning purposes and could potentially have up to 35,000 m² of development.

CONSULTATION

Staff circulated the proposed amendment application to various technical agencies, City Departments, the Queenswood Heights and the Southeast Innes Community Associations and the Cumberland Seniors Village. Staff also contacted landowners who currently own land zoned CC-X1 including the City’s Real Properties Asset Management Branch, as the City owns the land at the southwest corner of Tenth Line Road and Vanguard Drive. No concerns or issues were received from the circulated agencies; however, comments were received from the public both in support and opposed to the proposed amendment.

Concern:

The Innes Road Re-Zoning Group submitted comments indicating that they were concerned that adoption of this proposed amendment would result in “strip-mall development or a variety of individual businesses with no uniformity of plan along Innes Road”. They also raised concerns over the traffic on Innes Road and importance of having a secondary plan for the entire Bilberry Creek Industrial Park.

Response:

The issue with respect to the increased number of accesses along Innes Road will be addressed at the time of Site Plan Approval. Although there may be more than one property involved, attempts will be made to ensure that a comprehensive approach is taken to the planning and site design of the lands zoned CC-X1 and there will be an integrated system of roads, accesses, pedestrian links and infrastructure. It is acknowledged that the amendment will allow for the smaller parcels to develop, however, approval of the amendment will actually result in less building area being developed as it is difficult to achieve the required minimum 10,000 m² gross leasable floor area on some parcels, given their small size.

Concern:

The proposed amendment will allow for the development of 35,000 m² of gross leasable floor area on each of the three separately zoned CC-X1 parcels of land, located on the west side of Tenth Line Road. It was the intent of the former City of Cumberland Council when it passed OPA 33 that the land redesignated to “community commercial” in the Bilberry Creek Business Park could contain a maximum of 35,000 m² total over the three groupings of land.

Response:

The proposed amendment is not increasing the maximum gross leasable floor area requirements of the zone. Currently, the Official Plan designation and zoning would permit each of the areas zoned CC-X1 to have a maximum of 35,000 m². If the intent were to limit the floor area to only 35,000 m² over all the area zoned CC-X1 west of Tenth Line Road, that provision would have been expressly stated in the Zoning By-law. Further, details on how the 35,000m² was to be divided up among the more than seven individual properties would have been also implemented. More importantly, it is unlikely that all of the lands west of Tenth Line Road would have been zoned CC-X1 in 2000, given that the concept plan for one of the parcels located at the southwest corner or Innes Road and Lanthier Street which is the future site of a Loblaws grocery store and department store showed almost 30,000 m² of development.

Comment:

Comments were received from three of the landowners supporting the proposed amendment. They felt that under the current zoning it would be difficult to achieve the required minimum 10,000 m² gross leasable floor area on some of their properties and the text of the CC-X1 zoning was somewhat confusing and difficult to interpret.

Response:

The amendment will provide clarification in this regard and enable a development in scale with the parcels in question.

Ward Councillor:

Councillor McNeely attended a meeting on September 9, 2002 with staff and representatives of the Innes Road Re-Zoning Group, and is aware of the issues with respect to the proposed amendment.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

N/A

APPLICATION PROCESS TIMELINE STATUS

The application was not processed within the timelines established for the processing of a Zoning By-law Amendment application because there was a delay in the process due to the need to hold an information session with representatives of the community association.

ATTACHMENTS

Document 1 – Proposed Zoning By-law Amendments

Document 2 – Location Map of CC-X1 zoning

Document 3 – Potential Gross Leasable Floor Area.

DISPOSITION

Development Services Department and Legal Services to co-ordinate the finalization of the Zoning By-law for adoption by City Council and execution by Mayor and Clerk.

Development Services to undertake required Planning Act notifications.

Proposed Zoning Amendments Document 1

Issue Number	Section	Proposed Amendment	Objective
1.	7.3 (c) (ii)	Replace the words “ Innes Road” and “Tenth Line Road” with the phrases “the street abutting the front yard” and “the street abutting the external side yard”	To allow for the provision to be applied to properties where the front and external side yards are adjacent to streets other than Innes Road and Tenth Line Road
2.	7.3 (c) (v)	Delete the word “the” between the words “contrary” and “land” and add the word “contiguous” between the words “contrary” and “land”	To clarify that properties zoned CC-X1 that abut one another and not separated by a public road will be treated as a single lot for zoning purposes
3.	7.3(c)	Insert new subsection (vi) which states that there shall be no Gross Leasable Floor Area (Minimum) requirement for the lands zoned CC-X1	To allow smaller properties to develop which is in keeping with OPA #33 which does not specify a minimum floor area

Location Map of Cc-X1 Zoning Document 2

Potential Gross Leasable Floor Area Document 3