TO:                              Chair and Members of Development Services Committee

 

FROM:                        Jim Baird, Commissioner of Development Services

 

DATE:                         April 13, 2010

 

PREPARED BY:          Stephen Kitagawa, Senior Planner

 

Re:                              Business Corridor Zoning By-law Amendment

Request to authorize a Public Meeting to amend the Business Corridor category in all Town Zoning By-laws, as required.   

                                                                                                                                                        

 

 

RECOMMENDATION:

 

1.         That the memorandum entitled “Request to authorize a Public Meeting to amend the Business Corridor category in all Town zoning by-laws as required”, be received;

 

2.         That staff be directed to hold a Public Meeting to amend the Business Corridor category in all Town zoning by-laws as required;

 

3.         And that staff be authorized and directed to do all things necessary to give effect to this resolution.

 

BACKGROUND:

 

In March 2005, Official Plan Amendment 132 was approved.  The amendment refined the planned function of the Business Corridor Area designation to place a greater emphasis on accommodating the business and service needs of companies and employees as opposed to the general public and also reduced the maximum permitted gross floor area of any individual retail premise from 6000 m2  to 1000 m2 of gross floor area with the exception that computer retail and office supply stores may have a maximum gross floor area of 3000m2.  In addition the amendment also addressed certain matters with regard to use permissions.

 

The amendment was brought forward primarily because it was felt that it was not the intent of the Business Corridor Area designation to accommodate large format retail stores primarily serving the retail needs of the general public.  These types of facilities were meant to locate in the Major Commercial Area or Retail Warehouse Area designations identified in the Official Plan.

 

Certain sites were ‘grandfathered’ in the Official Plan at the time of the 2005 policy update, but the intention was that the new policies would be applied to all other Business Corridor sites in Markham.  Since 2005, Planning staff have been applying the new BC policies in discussions with prospective applicants and in review of development proposals.

 

It has recently come to our attention, however, that there are instances where lands designated BC in the Official Plan and intended to be subject to the new policies, are covered by zoning provisions that reflect the previous BC permissions and not the new policy directive.  As a result,  a number of sites are zoned with the original 6000 m2 maximum premise size permission.  The zoning of the parent by-laws must be brought into conformity with the Official Plan policies as soon as possible.    

 

The purpose of this memo is to seek authorization from Development Services Committee to schedule the statutory Public Meeting for a Town initiated zoning amendment to address the required zoning amendment. Due to time constraints, a preliminary report providing additional background information will be brought forward to Committee prior to, or on the date of, the Public Meeting.