Infilling policy on council agenda
The blue tarp looming over Diane Chesla’s hot tub doesn’t exactly match the style of her carefully designed back yard.
But while the plastic sheet doesn’t jibe with stone pathways and trees, Chesla says it became a necessity when a house unexpectedly began to rise in the Bruce Street lot behind her home.
“We are major athletes so we use the hot tub all the time. I stretch in there every day,” Chesla says. “For the moment, it is the only way to maintain our privacy.”
The house under construction on Bruce Street is noticeably taller than the surrounding homes. The windows have been framed in and are higher than the fences in the next door yards, including those of Chesla and her husband, Henri Ragetlie.
The couple says they don’t mind a home infilling the empty lot, but would have liked some notice prior to construction starting.
“We are building a solarium in our front porch, and we had to have a public meeting about it to ensure it fit with the style of the neighbourhood and those types of considerations,” Ragetlie says. “But this new home went in without any notifications or meetings.”
He says they found out a meeting was held for development on that property more than 20 year ago, but nothing since.
Bruce Bellows, senior land use policy planner for the City of St. Catharines, says notifications and public meetings are typically only done if a proposed project requires a change to the zoning bylaw. In the case of the Bruce Street home, no changes were requested or needed.
The developer only needed a building permit, Bellows says, and public notifications are not required for those.
However, Bellows says how the public accesses information about what is being built in St. Catharines might soon change.
Tonight city council is scheduled to debate the city’s policy on infilling.
Part of that discussion will be a proposed new online system to alert the public to building projects.
Bellows says right now notifications for public meetings about projects are advertised in local newspapers, on the city website and on signs in the impacting neighbourhoods. However, he says residents sometimes find out too late that a meeting is being held or they want more detailed information.
The proposed online tool would give access to information about public meetings and details about building permits and other information.
Chesla and Ragetlie say they would welcome easier access to building information. They said when the home behind they started going up, they didn’t even know where to find the appropriate information or who to ask.
However, they think that even a building permit should be made part of a public consolation process even if a zoning amendment is not needed.
As it is, Chesla said she will be shopping for taller, fast growing trees to restore privacy to her backyard.
“I was really upset about this,” she said. “We put a lot of time and energy and money into our home.”