By Robert Frank
www.thesuburban.com
Citizens have “shot down” a proposal to re-zone their neighbourhoods, according to Rhonda Massad.
The Beaconsfield city councilor told The Suburban in an interview that residents in four zones were aggrieved by the zoning process, “particularly in one zone: Elm Plaza.”
“Citizens got all excited, and rightfully so,” said the District 6 representative. “They felt uninformed and unready. They kept finding errors [in the zoning proposals].”
“The mayor [David Pollock] voted in favour of moving this process forward,” she continued, “but citizens got enough signatures to put it back to zero.”
“When such proposals are advanced,” Massad explained, “there is a period when citizens can go to city hall and sign a registry indicating that they are not in favour of the zoning change.”
“Effectively, it is sort of a mini-referendum. It was an overwhelming task: they had to get 181 people’s signatures in order to overturn the proposal. Ultimately, they had 240 [signatories].”
She said that contentious areas include the Esso service station at St. Charles and Beaurepaire; and “a spot on Beaconsfield near Lakeview.”
“The biggest issue is height and densification at Elm Plaza,” Massad emphasized. “Citizens want the [proposed] four-storey height limit decreased to three stories.”
She asserted that the newfound height of mixed-use commercial buildings would overshadow adjacent residences, and said that she would prefer zoning changes that would move taller structures “to the front of the lot.”
“I have no problem with densification. I have a problem with height,” concluded Massad, who announced in a September interview with The Suburban that she intends to run for mayor during next year’s municipal election.
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-45892555-1’, ‘robertfrankmedia.blogspot.com’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
