Five Things: Some things you might not know about Ottawa proposed zoning bylaw amendment

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When councillors receive the first draft of Ottawa’s new comprehensive zoning bylaw amendment later this month, it will be the biggest overhaul of the city’s zoning since amalgamation in 2001.

Councillors — and the public — received a sneak peek of what’s in store on April 29 at a joint meeting of the planning and housing committee and the agriculture and rural affairs committee. They’ll spend the next year and a half debating the bylaws, consulting with the public and shaping the language. A final vote is expected at the end of 2025.

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Digesting the changes, with their mass of documentation, graphics and legalese is a challenge, but here are five proposals that may surprise you.

Parking

The city plans to do away with parking minimums, that is, requiring a developer to include a minimum number of parking spots at their buildings. That doesn’t necessarily mean there will be new apartment with no parking at all — it just leaves it up to the developer to decide how many spaces they want to provide. It’s something that the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association has been pushing for. Parking spots are expensive, adding as much as $30,000 to $80,000 per  spot to each building — a cost that’s ultimately passed on to buyers.

“As a significant space and cost factor for both land and building development, the cost of creating and maintaining parking spaces is often bundled into the cost of retail, office and housing development regardless of whether a unit is owned, leased or rented, which means that everyone, whether they require a parking space or not, pays for parking,” city staff writes in a report about the zoning bylaw amendment.

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Ottawa has included minimum parking requirements in its zoning bylaws since 1964, but a number of Canadian and U.S. cities, including Toronto and Edmonton, have ditched minimum parking rules. With no place to park a car, some residents of the new buildings will opt to use public transit, car-share programs or use active transportation such as bikes or simply walking. Or they might be forced to hunt to nearby street parking.

Garage sizes

Speaking of parking … Is getting your SUV into the garage a bit like threading a needle? The new zoning bylaw proposes to regulate the interior dimensions of garages to make sure you can actually park your vehicle inside.

A single-car garage in a new build would have to have interior dimensions of at least three metres wide and six metres long. That’s big enough to not only fit a Ford F150 inside, but it even lets you open the doors (a bit). Double-car garages will have to be at least five metres wide.

Home businesses

Who doesn’t like the smell of fresh baked bread? That may be coming to your neighbourhood, too.

The city is proposing relaxing the regulations surrounding home businesses, including catering, day cares, instructional facilities and micro-distribution facilities.

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“Small and start-up businesses in a range of sectors, from retail to small-scale manufacturing, creative and cultural industries, consulting and people services, where they do not create incompatibilities or nuisances, need to be nurtured and supported,” the city says in its introductory report to the bylaw amendments.

The city has worked with Ottawa Public Health to create new provisions for businesses that produce “low-risk foods,” those that don’t require refrigeration or pose disease risk.

“They include items such as baked goods, breads, cakes, chocolates, hard candies and brittles, fudge and toffees, granola, trail mix, nuts and seeds, and coffee beans and tea leaves,” the city says.

The businesses could employ one or two employees, depending on the density of the neighbourhoods they’re in, but won’t be allowed to have on-site seating. Up to half of the home space can be devoted to the business, up from 25 per cent under existing bylaws. You can even use your detached garage for your business — if you don’t need it to park your F150, that is.

Trees

Trees get a lot of love in the comprehensive zoning bylaw amendment. That means giving builders some flexibility on where they place a structure on a site if it’s needed to preserve a significant tree. The bylaw also includes requirements for “soft landscaping” that preserves space for trees in front and back yards.

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Projections, such as bay windows, will have to be cantilevered to minimize digging that would disrupt tree roots. Similarly, underground parking garages won’t be allowed to extend to within three metres of the property line and every yard must contain a minimum of 30 cubic metres of soil. “These provisions are needed to ensure the construction of underground parking structures does not eliminate the potential for trees to grow as redevelopment occurs,” the city says.

It’s all part of the plan to reduce urban “heat islands” and to respond to the climate emergency that the city declared in 2019.

Densification (but not all at once)

Ottawa’s current hodge-podge of zoning bylaws, much of it carried over unchanged from pre-amalgamation cities and towns, divides the city’s neighbourhoods into five zones — R1 to R5 — but there are so many sub-categories and distinct regulations that there are, in fact, more than 140 zoning variations. “This complex framework of provisions has become increasingly challenging to interpret and implement,” the city acknowledges.

The comprehensive zoning bylaw amendment reduces the variations to 36. There would be six primary zones — N1 to N6 — regulating the density and maximum height of buildings. Those zones are further subdivided into sub-zones, labelled A to F, that are based on the lot width, front, rear and side setbacks. Sub-zone A is for the densest, most urban area with the smallest lot size and buildings closer together and closer to the street and sub-zone F the most suburban area, with larger lots and greater spacing between buildings.

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Does that mean your current R1 street in Alta Vista will turn into Brooklyn overnight? No, the city says. The city estimates that the the typical turnover of houses is about 0.5 per cent a year, meaning in a one-hectare city block, just three properties would turn over for infill in the course of 25 years. (For reference, the lawn of Parliament Hill is just under two hectares.)

The overhaul includes other zonings as well: for transit hubs, main street zones, minor corridors and neighbourhood mixed-use zones, along with industrial and transportation zones, zones for institutional, recreation and green space, and “special districts” for areas such as the ByWard Market.

It’s all a little overwhelming when printed on paper or read on a screen, but the city is set to unveil its “digital twin” — an online, 3D model of the city with a slider to view what the city will look like five, 10 or 25 years into the future. The public will be able to access the digital twin in the Engage Ottawa website.

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