How were the Zones Determined?

The Zoning Bylaw contains maps showing the zoning designation of all land within the city. These maps are found in Schedule A at the back of both the current Zoning Bylaw 2012-20 and the proposed new Zoning Bylaw 2025-37. But how were these zoning designations determined?

Alignment with Official Community Plan (OCP): The zoning bylaw must align with the OCP. The OCP provides land use designations, such as Residential – Urban, Mixed-Use – Downtown Core, and Industrial (and many others), which are shown in Map 5 of the OCP. The zone designations and corresponding regulations are designed to implement the policies for each land use designation, as outlined in Section 15 of the OCP.

Zone Conversion Table: The proposed bylaw introduces updated zone names and codes to be applied city-wide. In most cases, existing zones will be converted to new ones using the Zone Conversion Table. When drafting new zone regulations, care was taken to ensure that uses allowed under the current bylaw are generally maintained in the new zones. Likewise, development regulations, such as setbacks, site coverage, and building heights, are designed to be at least as permissive as those in the current bylaw for the corresponding zones.

Exceptions to the Zone Conversion Table: In some cases, the zone identified in the Zone Conversion Table is not appropriate. These exceptions fall into two categories:

  1. OCP-Driven Changes: Where the default conversion does not align with the land use designation in the OCP, a different zone that aligns with the OCP has been selected.
  2. Other Map Changes: In a few instances, successor zone from the conversion table is unsuitable for reasons unrelated to the OCP. For example, some properties currently zoned CM1 or CM2 are located outside the downtown area. The successor zone in the conversion table is the CMD (Commercial – Mixed-Use Downtown) zone, which is only appropriate downtown. As a result, a more suitable commercial zone has been selected for these properties.

A full list of affected areas is provided in the OCP-Driven and Other Map Changes document.

Share How were the Zones Determined? on Facebook Share How were the Zones Determined? on Twitter Share How were the Zones Determined? on Linkedin Email How were the Zones Determined? link