Quote:
Originally Posted by GP_Matt
We accept zoning in the city because we enjoy the benefits of it, but there is potential for abuse. As an example, the city could rezone an inner city block of residential houses and declare it high density residential. Every house would then become non-conforming and the owners would be prevented from doing anything to improve their value of the property outside of required maintenance. In order for the city to do this though there is a fairly involved process that involves advertising intentions and holding public forums and the whole process still allows an affected landowner to appeal to the courts.
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That's not really how land use works here. If you're a bungalow on a 50' lot for instance, and it's zoned R2 (which facilitates two 25' lot infills) it doesn't mean that existing structure is "non-conforming". A property owner could tear down the house and re-build as one house on that 50' lot, they could renovate, they could do anything they wanted within the by-laws - they're certainly never forced to build up to the density zoned for the property. There are massive swaths of the inner city that were rezoned in this way 20-30 years ago.