Dear Neighbours, UEL Administration posted the draft of proposed new building bylaw (aka. "Land Use and Development Bylaw) on their website.
It is worth reviewing the letter from the UEL Manager that highlights the most notable proposed changes to the bylaw.
It is fair to say that the most notable change to the bylaw with respect to Little Australia (Area-C) is the REMOVAL OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT PERMIT if a project does not ask for variance from the bylaw.
At the moment, any new project is subject to obtaining a Development Permit (DP) before a Building Permit is granted. During the focus group discussion it was noted that the DB application process was open to subjective interpretations of an imprecise bylaw making the process time-consuming, uncertain and costly as UEL Staff had to spend an excessive amount of time to deal with each application.
The focus group asked the UEL Administration to draft a bylaw that would address the concerns regarding "neighbourhood character" by quantifying them. Those are to become fixed constraints and the most notable example is allowing for two storey houses to be build in Little Australia as long as the second floor is 25% smaller that the first floor.
This is a notable departure from the existing bylaw and residents comments would be most helpful in confirming that indeed this approach is widely supported in Area-C.
Another notable change is to allow ACCESSORY SUITES as long as they are a part of the principal building and the owner lives in the house.
