On May 5, 2009 Town staff tabled a document covering six specific studies concerning the new Official Plan for Oakville. It is an excellent document well prepared and presented.
The Residential Intensification Study is brought to your attention, in particular, as this is a study affecting the future of our south-east residential area specifically RO1 zoning. At present the Zoning regulations, defined by the recent Rendl study as "they go beyond the approach taken by other municipalities. Oakville in its zoning uses several controls not applied in other municipalities to comparable residential areas" define developement. The zoning regulations are the basis of consideration of developement and we hear little of the Official Plan.
This will change, probably for the better, in some of our other districts. In our district the RO1 zoning requires a minimum lot area of 15,000su.ft. the basis of all current planning and discussion. The proposed new Official Plan ,which will govern as we were told, will demand a density of 10 dwelling units per hectare for RO1 zoning. Currently we have in our zoning regulations a density 7 dwelling units per hectare. This is not spelled out specifically but as the minimum lot size is 15,000 su.ft. and the hectare is 107,639 su.ft. we have a density of 7 dwellings per hectare by deduction.
The proposal would mean for any given two lots cojoined into one, a severance into three would be a fait accompli. A bonanza for developers.
This point was raised amongst others at the meeting but not much was heard from either our councillors or public on the ramifications of the plan with regard to RO1 zoning. The future of Oakville will follow the plan. This is a vital document for our study and comment. Archie Here is comment by Keith Bird to Doug Mackenzie on Archie's writeup:
Keith Bird's response
Doug:
Archie is correct; The density of 10 being assigned to RO1 is too high (should be 7) and is more applicable to R2 zoning than R01. The same seems to go for the 29 Units per gross hectre being applied to infill sites like the OTMH and the DND lands.
Hopefully this issue will be revisited at the May 27th Ward Three meeting.
Regards,
Keith