And Now for Something Completely Different.....

Sorry- I lie. Now to revisit stuff that has not been peeped about in a long while.

The previous OCP was enacted in 1996, and after that began the process of updating the Zoning Bylaw #36. By summer 1999, with the municipality incorporation vote going on and general malaise about the newly recoined Land Use Bylaw, guess what- it was deferred to the new Council.

So from 1999-2002, besides setting up the new municipality, the biggest thing to do was the LUB, which finally passed in September, I think of 2002, just before the next election season kicked off.

But it did not pass until a whole bunch of stuff was either watered down, set aside, or glossed over. some of those things were pretty significant.

The first was any remedy for existing residential use of secondary suites and freestanding structures (the latter quite common on acreages). Well, secondary suites were eventually approved but the other is still, pardon the joke, outstanding. We really do need to attend to that.

A second thing is around tourist accommodations. B&B's are allowed up to 4 rooms pretty much anywhere, there is one guesthouse (The Orchard), Inns up to 20 rooms but with some pretty draconian restrictions, are allowed if so zoned. But there are a lot of holes, and consequent 'illegal' operations.

Take Dan Parkin's lodge at the Old Dorm. More than 4 rooms, not zoned for an inn. He has been around for quite a while, and not a single neighbourhood complaint, as far as I know. Yet, when I tried to create an Historic Lodge category for him and Evergreen Hall next door, one would have thought the sky was falling. The good burghers of Senator Place and environs worried about the door being pried open, and lord knows what getting in.

Suffice to say, the zoning anomaly continues. Which is no big deal, one could say, but it does not provide certainty to the proprietors or the neghbours.

Another example of that is The Ruddy kitchen. It submitted a rezoning proposal, but it sits unattended. So the use is tolerated, and between it and Bowen Butcher nearby, at least people can buy a quart of milk (sorry- a litre), without going across the island, but they are still in the twilight zone.

I want to fix those things. Add to those- Eddie's Pit, in existence for 50 years, still not legal. Or the 'extended home occupations' that allowed certain activities, perhaps short of building home nukes, in larger rather than smaller backyards. Or Temporary Use Permits, with their arcane restrictions and regulations about renewals.

There is a lot of cleanup work to be done, and it always seems to get brushed off in favour of more urgent crises. Time to do some Spring cleaning.