HAMILTON ZONING BY-LAW: CONSOLIDATING USE BY USE

NRU
July 26, 2017
Dominik Matusik

Hamilton is harmonizing its six pre-amalgamation zoning bylaws into one. While it is slow work, planners say that consolidating the bylaws use by use has been an effective approach.

There are currently seven zoning by-laws in effect in Hamilton, resulting from the 2000 amalgamation of the six municipalities: Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook, Hamilton, and Stoney Creek. The seventh zoning by-law is the new consolidated by-law, which is being completed in stages. It is currently in effect for downtown, institutional, industrial, parks/open spaces, transit-oriented development and rural uses.

Ward 3 councillor Matthew Green told NRU that changing the zoning by-law use by use has made public consultation easier.

“When you create flexibility and broaden the terms, then you reduce the time and the bureaucracy on getting some of these projects through approval... Respecting resources and respecting the authenticity of engagement, you have to go piece by piece.”

He adds that with new provincial density demands, there is an even greater need for consolidated zoning, to more appropriately spread intensification across the city.

Hamilton policy planner manager Joanne Hickey-Evans agrees that the piecemeal approach taken by staff has worked well.

“I think it works quite well... There are some growing pains, but other than that, I think doing it in topic areas is great because you can engage those people interested in certain elements of the zoning differently than others. The rural community had its own complete public consultation, everything was focused on the rural areas. So you can really hone in on what the issues are,” she told NRU.

She adds that this method may take longer, but makes it much easier for planners to engage the public.

Staff has been creating the harmonized by-law since 2005, but work has been delayed due to issues with the city’s two official plans—its urban and rural official plans. Not only has the Ministry of Municipal Affairs taken a long time to approve the plans, but there have been hundreds of OMB appeals since the city adopted the plans in 2006 and 2009 respectively.

While Hickey-Evans says there are still outstanding appeals, none of the ones remaining affect work on the consolidated by-law. She says that the consolidation is a “huge undertaking,” but necessary to bring the city’s zoning in line with its official plans.

“It’s hard to administer six by-laws. The by-laws don’t reflect the vision of the new plan. And the regulations between the six by-laws can be minimally different, moderately different, or vastly different, depending on what the issue is... There’s hundreds of regulations across zones. [There is a] difference in the way they treat a land use, the way they define things. They can really be quite different.”

Hickey-Evans says that the disparity in the ages of the zoning by-laws was also problematic as they spanned from the 1950s to the 1990s, and had gone through many amendments over the years. Additionally, given their different contexts— some highly urban, like Hamilton, and others almost entirely rural, like Flamborough—there were discrepancies between the by-laws.

“I think the biggest challenge is creating consensus while maintaining the unique characters of distinct communities,” Green says. “What’s considered lowdensity in [the former City of] Hamilton... would be problematic [for the other former municipalities]... Modest, medium density [by old Hamilton standards], six storeys ... would be considered high density in some of these neighbourhoods.”

Staff is currently working on the commercial mixed-use zone of the by-law and anticipates finalizing this section for council to review in October. After that the next zone staff will be reviewing is residential. The entire consolidation is expected to be complete by 2019.