I just slightly spammed the city, Inglewood, and Gian-Carlo Carra on Insta with three posts saying “support good urban design!” ??
 
I don't understand. People were upset with a plaza being added to 9th Ave? How is that not anything but a good thing?
 
It wasn't defined as a public plaza persay, it was described as follows:
"A further 2.0 FAR to a maximum of 6.5 FAR may be achieved through the additional provision of a publicly accessible private open space along 9 Avenue SE and the provision of an integrated
transit waiting area along 9 Avenue SE" . In my estimation, the applicant didn't do enough. Basically, there is no landscaping. So they wanted the additional 2.0 FAR, and had nothing to show for it. If I also recall,
there was not a lot of appetite for risk: If they had passed the re-designation, and the project goes away, the FAR with bonusing sticks, and Bobs your Uncle. My 2 cents worth.
 
The risk here is the proposed land use is not tied to the flashy design they are showing in the renderings, it's merely a text amendment. The developer could easily get the density they want and water down the design, if they determine that it's too expensive. They could also flip the property to another developer, who could take the design in a completely different direction, while taking a tidy profit.
 
Keep in mind this was just the planning commission stage, not the official public hearing at Council. That will be scheduled once it is through CPC. The public doesn't get to speak at CPC.
 
outoftheice said:
Is there a mechanism available to city council that can tie this specific design to the land use approval?
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A tied to plans Direct Control bylaw. Howevery, they have their drawbacks, in that they can be extremely onerous to make minor changes to the design that come about as the development progresses. Even the slight shifting of a door would require going back to Council.
 
You could register a design covenant on title... then choose to enforce it if the changed design doesn't live up to the spirt of the covenant. This allows it to be more flexible than a site specific zoning, and what I do on my files when I worked as a planner in YVR.
 
JustDandy said:
You could register a design covenant on title... then choose to enforce it if the changed design doesn't live up to the spirt of the covenant. This allows it to be more flexible than a site specific zoning, and what I do on my files when I worked as a planner in YVR.
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Do you mean the title holder would register the covenant as a condition for approval?
 
JustDandy said:
The Municipality has a covenant placed on the property as a prior to condition.
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Interesting, thanks for sharing. The only problem I see with the city using covenants, is that if they are not restrictive, they will not run with the land if a developer sells.
 
Disraeli said:
Interesting, thanks for sharing. The only problem I see with the city using covenants, is that if they are not restrictive, they will not run with the land if a developer sells.
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Yeah we just register a restrictive covenant with their early plans on it as a schedule. It basically says the design not like presented in schedule A is restricted( obviously in legal terms). Then as a regulator when the final design comes forward we have the option of 1) choosing not to enforce it, 2) requesting a covenant amendment with updated plans or 3) choose to enforce it.
 
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