{"id":7822,"date":"2012-01-30T00:05:35","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T05:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingottawa.ca\/?p=7822"},"modified":"2013-01-21T09:19:53","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T14:19:53","slug":"baltz-section-37-loopholes-now-big-enough-to-drive-a-bus-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2012\/01\/30\/baltz-section-37-loopholes-now-big-enough-to-drive-a-bus-through\/","title":{"rendered":"BALTZ: Section 37 loopholes now big enough to drive a bus through"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
And not just any bus, either.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In a previous post here last May<\/a> , I talked about the City\u2019s plans to finally implement the powers granted by \u201cSection 37\u201d of the Ontario Planning Act, which have been on the books in Ottawa since 2003 but never put into practice. As described in the previous post:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way it works is this:\u00a0 A developer proposes to have a property rezoned, say from 6 to 12 stories.\u00a0 Without Section 37, the increased value of the rezoned property goes to the developer alone. Instead, under [Section 37], the increase in value is calculated, and an agreement put in place for a percentage (usually about 20-30%) of the increase to be provided for benefits that must be in the nearby community. \u2026 Possible benefits include tangibles like renovating a park, public art, conserving a heritage building, public streetscape improvements, artist live-work space, affordable housing, daycare space, and specific projects listed in a Community Design Plan for the area.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At least, that\u2019s the way it has worked for a decade in Toronto and was originally also proposed for Ottawa. <\/p>\n

The guidelines for implementing this were supposed to have gone to Planning Committee of City Council last June 14 to be approved, and residents were to be reaping \u201ccommunity benefits\u201d by now.\u00a0 No such luck. \u00a0The report was pulled, and city planning staff went into private consultations with the development community all summer.\u00a0 The results were finally revealed to the public at large on December 6.\u00a0 The new draft guidelines were not made available beforehand, but only handed out at the meeting (and are still not posted under the public consultation section of the City\u2019s website). Anyone who wanted to provide comments at the public session had to read pretty quickly to analyze the nine pages of text, and then line up to ask questions or make comments.\u00a0 Instead of a whole summer, the public got less than 3 hours.<\/p>\n

So, what happened behind closed doors over the summer?\u00a0 The guidelines appear to have been pretty thoroughly gutted.<\/p>\n

The amount of Section 37 benefits that are required when a rezoning happens is a portion of the \u201cuplift,\u201d which is the term for the amount the value of a piece of land is increased because of rezoning.\u00a0 The previous draft of the City guidelines mandated that this uplift be based on the actual increase in value, assessed at arm\u2019s length.\u00a0 Now?\u00a0 There are to be uniform uplift values applied uniformly across each of two broad areas of the city\u2014an inner area that includes Kitchissippi, Somerset, Rideau-Vanier, Rideau-Rockcliffe, Capital, and Alta Vista Wards, and an area outside of this that stretches from Eagelson to Anderson, and down to Leitrim\/Fallowfield.\u00a0 There are two big problems with this.\u00a0 First, huge amounts of much less valuable land outside the central core and high-development main street corridors that stretch east-west from Westboro to Vanier are included in the inner area.\u00a0 This means that the average land value that will presumably be used to calculate the uplift will seriously undervalue the real profit gained by rezoning in the very high-value areas where development is actually occurring.\u00a0 Second, since the uplift values will be set annually by Council for both inner zones, the inevitable intense lobbying of a receptive Council by the development industry will virtually guarantee values that only are a fraction of the actual profit realized in a rezoning.<\/p>\n

Another big loophole in the draft guidelines?\u00a0 This would be all the cases in which community benefits under Section 37 can be reduced.\u00a0 These include any case where Planning staff considers the current zoning to be out of date or not conforming to the Official Plan. Anyone who thinks that the Planning Department often thinks zoning is up-to-date and implements the Official Plan has not read many Planning staff reports on rezoning applications. \u00a0Another exemption is if the developer rearranges the total volume allowed under the current zoning into a different shape, even if that results in a building much taller than the zoning would allow.\u00a0 One catch here is that it is rarely possible to actually build a building that fills the zoning envelope.\u00a0 Details like the building code and the need to provide windows in each unit get in the way.\u00a0 So these \u201crearrangements\u201d almost always result in much greater buildable volume than could be achieved under the zoning, but they would be free of having to provide Section 37 benefits.\u00a0 Not to mention that units on higher floors are much more valuable, and hence the uplift should be greater, even for the same total volume as a lower building.\u00a0 Other exemptions include cases where the developer includes a \u201cplaza\u201d or \u201cpathways.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial, relatively strong Section 37 document of last Spring is now just a memory, victim of a summer of behind-closed-doors discussions between City Planning Staff and developers with influence.\u00a0 What we are almost certainly going to get when these guidelines go before a compliant Planning Committee for approval on February 14th<\/sup> is essentially this watered-down version full of loopholes.\u00a0 Inevitably, there will be some small change made in the final report (due to be posted as part of the February 14 Planning Committee agenda on the City\u2019s website on February 6th<\/sup>) to deflect criticism\u2014possibly including somewhat different boundaries for the zones in which uplift values will be calculated.\u00a0 But overall, Section 37 in Ottawa will end up being simply a very small fee for developers to buy cover for major changes in zoning.\u00a0 There will be lots of hype and back-patting by Council and staff when this is passed, but what we are really getting out of this will likely not amount to much at all.<\/p>\n

photo by Mike Gifford<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a previous post here last May , I talked about the City\u2019s plans to finally implement the powers granted by \u201cSection 37\u201d of the Ontario Planning Act, which have been on the books in Ottawa since 2003 but never put into practice. As described in the previous post: \u201cThe way it works is this:\u00a0Continue reading “BALTZ: Section 37 loopholes now big enough to drive a bus through”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5302,341],"tags":[1097,872,490,1413,1369,394,398,2892,2889,421],"class_list":["post-7822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-urban-design","tag-artist","tag-city-council","tag-jay-baltz","tag-mike-gifford","tag-official","tag-ottawa","tag-planning","tag-planning-committee","tag-planning-department","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBALTZ: Section 37 loopholes now big enough to drive a bus through - Spacing Ottawa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2012\/01\/30\/baltz-section-37-loopholes-now-big-enough-to-drive-a-bus-through\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BALTZ: Section 37 loopholes now big enough to drive a bus through - Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a previous post here last May , I talked about the City\u2019s plans to finally implement the powers granted by \u201cSection 37\u201d of the Ontario Planning Act, which have been on the books in Ottawa since 2003 but never put into practice. 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