The process to establish a new comprehensive zoning bylaw for the Municipality of Grey Highlands is entering its endgame.
At its meeting on March 19, Grey Highlands council received its first glimpse of the draft of the long-awaited new zoning bylaw for the municipality. The process to update the zoning bylaw started in 2021, but encountered frequent delays due to planning staff challenges at the municipality.
The existing zoning bylaw for Grey Highlands came into full force back in 2006 and must be updated to reflect changes in the planning and development world that have occurred over the past two decades.
At the meeting, council received a report from the planning department outlining the upcoming process, which will include a public open house and a formal public meeting, required for the update to the zoning bylaw, now that a draft version of the new document has been prepared.
To kickstart the process, Grey Highlands contracted planner Ashley Bilodeau to work on the update of the zoning bylaw.
A municipality’s zoning bylaw is one of the central guiding planning documents for the entire community.
A zoning by-law contains provisions to control:
- What a property can be used for;
- How big the property or structure can be;
- Where buildings can be placed;
- How tall, what size, and how many buildings can be built; and
- How many parking spaces are needed, and where the parking spaces can be located.
At the outset of the discussion on the report, Coun. Paul Allen, who is the chair of planning for Grey Highlands, asked members of council to stick to the topic on hand - the upcoming process for the new zoning bylaw and to avoid larger discussions about changes the draft bylaw is proposing to planning regulations in the municipality.
Allen acknowledged that members of council would have plenty of comments, questions and concerns about the contents of the bylaw, himself included, but said there would be a future time and place for that discussion. He said if council tried to have that discussion during a regular meeting, they would "be here all day.”
In the subsequent discussion, council agreed that a special committee of the whole meeting needed to be scheduled in the coming days for council to have an in-depth conversation about the proposed new zoning bylaw. The main question was whether council should hold the committee of the whole session before or after the proposed bylaw goes to the public for comments and review.
“I think we need to go through this first, as a council, before we go to the public,” said Mayor Paul McQueen, who said he had already compiled two pages of comments and concerns. The mayor suggested it didn’t make sense for council to take the draft zoning bylaw to the public, before council made its comments and suggested changes. “We need the opportunity to go through it ... before we go to the public. There is a lot of stuff in there.”
CAO Karen Govan told council that staff, when they present the draft bylaw to council at a future meeting, will include a track document that will outline the proposed changes in the draft new bylaw as compared to the current regulations.
“The document is really good,” said Govan, who said it would fully explain why changes are being proposed in the draft new bylaw. “At the end of the day, (council) has to feel comfortable justifying (the changes) to your constituents.”
Council voted unanimously in favour of setting up a special committee of the whole session as soon as possible to discuss the draft of the new zoning bylaw.