RURAL ZONING IN CKL
By Kirk Winter
The City of Kawartha Lakes is a little closer to merging their rural zoning by-laws into one coherent piece of legislation.
If you are new to the area, you may not know that courtesy of amalgamation in 2001 the City was faced with the problem of combining 13 sets of rural zoning by-laws into one document.
A number of previous Councils ignored this complex issue, that left zoning by-law consolidation to be completed by the current Council, elected in 2018. This set of by-law re-writes does not include those that govern Lindsay, Bobcaygeon, Fenelon Falls, Omemee or Woodville. According to the City's Official Plan, they are deemed as urban areas. A new set of consolidated zoning by-laws for urban areas will be started once the rural consolidation of zoning by-laws is in place by 2021.
On February 18, 2020, staff and WSP Consultants told Council that the process for rural zoning by-law consolidation began in 2019 with public consultation, resulting in the discussion paper being presented.
Council was informed that the goals of the zoning consolidation were to produce a set of by-laws that were:
More user-friendly
Easier for developers to use and understand
To create equity across the City
To generate cost savings for staff who are currently juggling 13 different sets of rules
Staff shared that more than 40 municipalities in Ontario are currently going through this kind of zoning by-law consolidation, and it “was a difficult and complicated process.”
Councillor O’Reilly wanted to know how difficult it would be to align the new by-laws with provincial policy. he was told that “the City will likely have to continue to update by-laws on a yearly basis to reflect what the province wants.”
Staff shared that there is currently a difference between how CKL and the Province deal with zoning agricultural land, and that is something that this consolidation process would have to work out.
Councillor Ashmore wanted to know “why this process is taking so long” and expressed his fears that developers were becoming frustrated with the lengthy timeline. Staff shared that there was nothing preventing business from submitting development plans while this consolidation was being discussed.
Mayor Letham asked if this by-law consolidation was going to broaden the definitions of terms for land usage so that “retail meant retail rather than retail where you can only sell coffee and not ice cream.” Staff said they were aiming to simplify land use standards to make it easier for small businesses to get up and running without having to petition for endless minor variances.
Letham also wanted to know if those property owners who had received a designation of “legal non-conforming” for their property from a previous township council would have that designation was threatened by the new by-laws? Staff said there was no plan to impact decisions made by past township Councils, suggesting at least to this reporter that all previous decisions regarding zoning decisions would likely be grandfathered by this current Council.
Staff shared that the two most problematic areas for zoning issues involve waterfront and agricultural land. They said that more community consultation would be required before decisions are made regarding this kind of land usage.
Staff also suggested that by the time the rural zoning by-law consolidation was done with guidance and input from the public and the City, there would be better answers about some of the many questions posed by Councillors, including
The status of cannabis as an agricultural crop
The role of the various Conservation Authorities in determining land usage
Setbacks for cottages
Mayor Letham understood Councillors' concerns about the timing of the process, but was hoping for consistency across the City when this process was completed. He concluded the discussion by saying, “This is so important that we need to get it right.”