Zone with caution

Many of the world’s great cities have gained that status partly because esthetics were a priority in the building and rebuilding of neighbourhoods — sometimes through brutal means. In Ontario cities, esthetics and municipal planning have had a different relationship.

Conventional wisdom, according to an important new ruling from the Ontario Municipal Board, has long been that the province’s municipal planning laws were “uniquely oblivious or even hostile to esthetics. The (Ontario Municipal Board) could hence be relied on as legal defender of Ontario’s right to be ugly,” wrote board member Marc Denhez.

It is easy to see how that approach toward planning guidelines could cause strife when it comes to urban intensification in older neighbourhoods.

The decision from Ontario’s planning appeal tribunal — in response to an appeal from a consortium of Ottawa home builders — takes some pains to correct that view of provincial planning laws. Yes, it says, design and esthetics matter when it comes to municipal planning and cities have the authority to pass zoning laws meant to protect neighbourhood character.

The City of Ottawa has waded into those waters with design guidelines meant, in part, to help calm growing opposition to infill projects in older neighbourhoods and to preserve character. The guidelines were appealed by a group of home builders who said the city had overstepped its authority.

The OMB ruling is a step toward giving the city more power over what new buildings in downtown neighbourhoods look like and even what their front yards should consist of (soft, not hard, landscaping). But it comes with some qualifications including a crucial one: the rules should apply to all construction, not just new homes on vacant lots. And the OMB sent the city back to the drawing board when it comes to rules about garages in new houses, which is a particular point of contention.

It is helpful that the city’s powers to regulate what neighbourhoods look like, to a point, have been clarified. But when those zoning laws are eventually in place, the city would be wise to use its powers with caution. Character is an elusive thing. If it takes too heavyhanded a zoning approach — effectively eliminating, for example, significant differences between new homes in an older neighbourhood — the city risks sapping its older neighbourhoods of some of the charm that makes them so popular.