Congratulations to everyone who made the effort to make their views known during the Town of Barrhead’s latest public hearing.
As an editorial staff who regularly attend public hearings, open houses and other informational meetings, we are often the only ones, besides the actual parties involved, in the room.
So we were pleasantly surprised when on Tuesday, March 8, about 20 people squeezed into the small gallery in town council chambers to give their opinion about a land use bylaw amendment.
To be more specific, a landowner wanted to rezone a parcel of land on 43 St., near 54 Ave., from R2 residential to R3 residential. The difference being a property zoned as R2 is allowed to have a singe detached or a duplex type residence while a R3 is classified as a medium density zoning, allowing for a wide variety of housing options from medium to high density.
According to the R3 designation any development must take into consideration the character of the neighbourhood.
The question is what is the character of the neighbourhood. It is not an easy question to answer.
Nor is it one we will attempt to answer, at least in this particular case. It was clear that the large majority of the people in attendance believed the rezoning would be against the neighbourhood’s character.
That is assuming their assumption is correct and the developer is planning to build a four-plex on the site. Certainly a four-plex would be a possibility, but so are a number of other possibilities from a single detached dwelling to a duplex, tri-plex to a group home or bed and breakfast, although the last two are discretionary uses.
For municipal councils, it isn’t that simple. When council makes the decision whether or not to rezone a particular piece of property, most of the time they don’t know what a developer has planned for a piece of property. The rezoning comes first, then the property owner will submit a development application. It is only then that town administration staff and council will tackle the issue of whether the development adheres to the requirements spelled out in the land use bylaw.
During the March 8 public hearing, the majority of the audience, or at least the speakers, assumed they knew what the final product would be. If they were right we may never know, because council decided to postpone second and third reading so the Municipal Planning Commission could take another look at rezoning with the added comments received from the public.
For those who voiced their concerns over the rezoning, congratulations. For those who are in favour of this type of rezoning, get involved in the political process, because as demonstrated on March 8, it works.
