Witness The Destruction Of Your House Value
Get accustomed to that six-storey apartment building beside your home.
A city memo released on Friday pretty much defied a rational translation to the English (or French) language. This is generally done so that the public doesn’t see something that the city wants to do but the public doesn’t want.
Municipal democracy in action.
Surprise, surprise … this memo addresses development.
What this means, in your agent’s limit knowledge of the hogwash language of municipalese, is that developers will be able to build four-to-six storey apartments or condos on residential lots beside your inner city or suburban house. That is likely to cost neighbouring homeowners hundreds of thousands of dollars in house value because few people want to buy a single-family home beside an apartment. It could also mean blasting for underground parking spots or unsightly parking lots under the first floor of the apartment. And of course the joy of three summers of construction.
People will leave those neighbourhoods because they don’t want this to happen to beside their homes. Then developers can build more four- to six-storey buildings on that street … until everyone leaves. That’s called block busting and get accustomed to it. It’s a fast way for developers and individuals to flip a property and make ridiculous profits.
Once again, if you see a home on your street being rented and rather unkempt, take this as a sign that the owner is waiting for interest rates to decline before they build so as to maximize profits.
Goodbye traditional neighbourhoods. Best you sell now, particularly if your home is near rapid transit where the city and developers (if you can tell the difference) want to extremify to the extreme.
Here is the motion from city council on Nov. 22, 2023:
WHEREAS the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing approved the City’s Official Plan in November 2022 with several adjustments including revising Minor Corridor permissible heights as follows:
Downtown Minor Corridors, from 4 to 9 storeys
Inner Urban Minor Corridors, from 4 to 6 storeys
Outer Urban Minor Corridors, from 4 to 6 storeys
Suburban Minor Corridors, from 4 to 7 storeys …
… THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Council request that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing retain the Minor Corridor permissible heights in accordance with the November 2022 Ministry approval of the City’s new Official Plan.
You will note in the Friday release below that under “Minor Corridors” that the little detail of what would happen upon approval doesn’t appear. That is your municipal government working for you … or maybe someone else:
Ken Gray
To / Destinataire Mayor and City Council File/N° de fichier:
From /
Expéditeur
Don Herweyer, MCIP RPP
Special Advisor, Planning, Planning, Real Estate and Economic
Development Department
Subject / Objet Planning related matters and Bill 162 Get It Done Act
Date: February 23, 2024
On February 20, 2024, the Province of Ontario introduced Bill 162, Get It Done Act, 2024, an omnibus bill that amends several provincial acts including the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023. The purpose of this memo is to provide an update on three planning related matters in relation to Bill 162, specifically Council and City requests regarding:
1. Maximum building heights on Minor Corridors
2. Official Plan Act 5 amending the land use designation for the addition to the Village of Greely
3. An extension to the 2024 Development Charges (DC) By-law
Minor Corridors
Schedule 3 to Bill 162 propose amendments to the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023, being those modifications originally made by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on November 4, 2022 to Ottawa’s Official Plan. Bill 162 amends this Act and is consistent with the Council motion adopted on November 22, 2023, to “Retain the Minor Corridor permissible heights in accordance with the November 2022 Ministry approval of the City’s new Official Plan” (Modifications 7-10, 12 and 13). Once Bill 162 receives Royal Assent, these amendments will be retroactive to November 4, 2022.
Village of Greely Addition
Bill 162 does not propose an amendment to remove the designation provided to the Village of Greely through OPA 5, Official Plan Amendment omnibus 1, to implement the Minister’s modification that added this parcel to the village, despite the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023 removing this modification to the Official Plan. On February 7, 2024 Council adopted a motion regarding the clarification of the Greely Secondary Plan & Plan of Subdivision, 1600 Stagecoach Road to request the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing introduce legislation that would deem Modification 66 to Official Plan Amendment 5 that assigned a
designation to the Village of Greely addition to never have come into force. The request was made to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Staff have not received any correspondence from the Province regarding its intentions on this request.
2024 Development Charges By-law Extension
As requested by the Province, heads of Council were requested to submit comments on Bill 150, the Planning Statute Law Amendments Act, 2023, an Act to enact the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023, by December 7, 2023. Don Herweyer, Special Advisor – Planning, provided a memo to Council on December 11, 2023 on the City’s position on Official Plan adjustments and implications on the 2024 Development Charges By-law that the Mayor provided to the Province on December 5, 2023.
As per the Mayor’s letter and the memo to Council on December 11, 2023, the existing DC By-law was requested to receive a statutory extension to provide the necessary time to update the Infrastructure Master Plan and consult on the new DC By-law as a result of the reversal of the Minister’s urban boundary additions.
Correspondence from the Province in December 2023 indicated its intention to bring forward legislation to do so when the legislature resumes in February.
Bill 162 does not include proposals to amend the related DC legislation to enact the requested extension. Staff will continue to monitor the legislation and update Council on the timing of the anticipated legislative amendments to be implemented through a different bill.
Don Herweyer
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Ken,
Most of us living in single-family homes do not live on ‘minor corridors’ so why are you addressing this to all of us?
Thanks,
Jake
How is minor corridor defined? I’m half a block from Carling, is my street a minor corridor?
folks:
Please note that we cannot put links on comments. They slow down the website.
sorry
kgray
Merrill, Carling is a major corridor. That you are half a block off of it means that your existing back yard neighbour can be replaced by a high rise (well over 9 storeys). Welcome to the prospect of a perpetual invasion of privacy.
Jake, the same back yard neighbour implications applies to minor corridors, subject to the 6, 7 or 9 storey “limitations”. If you live a few blocks away from a minor corridor, then you are only faced with four-plexes going in next door.
In far too many instances, those who choose to dismiss those who are against something as NIMBYs have no “skin in the game”. After all, the easiest sacrifice is one that someone else has to make.
Not all the blame can be laid at the City’s doorstep. The Province, run by Ford and his gang, has been a huge driver of this push to intensify and ride roughshod over the livability of our neighbourhoods. In fact, a friend sent me a recent photo of Steve Clark, former Housing Minister, in Brockville, standing behind a podium on which sat a small container labelled NIMBY Tears. We ALL know who controls this poor excuse for a government, and hence who controls our City’s pursestrings and policies, as well as the Ontario Land Tribunal arbitrators. Unfortunately, a lot of damage will yet be done before Frod’s term is up.
Thanks Ron; at my age I’m not too worried, but my wife is a few years younger and will probably outlast me by many more. PS: I’m sure you don’t remember me, but we had mutual fiends at Carleton many years ago and I used to shop at your uncle’s (I think) store.
Merrill, the world just shrank a few sizes.