Question 6 of 10: Definitions of Planning Terms

Question 6: Definitions of Planning Terms (10 marks)

Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.

Five definitions are required; all eight are given here, since the set is a study resource. A full-mark definition on this paper states what the term is, the statutory instrument or process it belongs to, and one concrete illustration — two sentences of substance rather than a dictionary line.

(a) Minor variance. A minor variance is an authorisation, granted by a municipal committee of adjustment, permitting a small departure from a numerical standard of the zoning by-law where strict compliance is impractical and the departure is not significant. Under Ontario’s Planning Act s. 45 it must satisfy four tests: it must be minor in nature, desirable for the appropriate development or use of the land, and it must maintain the general intent and purpose of both the zoning by-law and the Official Plan. It cannot be used to introduce a use the zone does not permit — that requires a rezoning. A typical case is a rear-yard setback of 6.8 metres where the by-law requires 7.5 metres for an addition. The British Columbia equivalent is a development variance permit issued under the Local Government Act s. 498, which may vary siting, size and dimension standards but expressly may not vary use or density.

(b) Secondary suite. A secondary suite is a self-contained accessory dwelling unit — with its own kitchen, bathroom and, normally, its own entrance — created within an existing single-detached, semi-detached or row house and clearly subordinate to the principal dwelling, usually in the basement. It is the least disruptive form of gentle intensification: it adds a rental unit and mortgage-helper income without changing the streetscape, and provincial policy across Canada has moved to permit suites as of right in most residential zones rather than by individual approval. A legal suite must meet building code requirements for fire separation, means of egress, ceiling height and smoke alarms, and typically a parking and a maximum floor area standard in the zoning by-law. A detached accessory unit — a garden suite, coach house or laneway house — is a related but distinct form.

(c) Urban design. Urban design is the discipline concerned with the three-dimensional physical form of the public realm and with the relationships among buildings, streets, open spaces and the people who use them. It operates at the scale between architecture, which designs the individual building, and land use planning, which allocates activity; its subject matter is massing and height, setbacks and the street wall, active frontages at grade, transitions to adjacent buildings, sightlines and views, shadow and wind, landscape and the pedestrian environment, legibility and human scale, and the principles of crime prevention through environmental design. In Canadian practice it is implemented through urban design guidelines and design panels, and given legal force through development permit areas established for form and character under the British Columbia Local Government Act s. 488 or through site plan control in Ontario.

(d) Building envelope. In planning usage, the building envelope is the three-dimensional volume on a lot within which a building may lawfully be constructed. It is defined by the zoning by-law’s front, side and rear yard setbacks, its maximum height and number of storeys, any angular plane or sky-exposure plane, and its maximum lot coverage, and is often further restricted by registered easements, riparian or hazard setbacks, and required tree-protection zones. It is the buildable box, and any proposal that projects outside it requires a minor variance or a rezoning. The term also has a distinct building-science meaning — the physical assembly of walls, roof, windows and foundation separating conditioned interior from exterior, which governs thermal and moisture performance — and a candidate should make clear which sense is intended.

(e) Heritage district. A heritage district (a heritage conservation district under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act, or a heritage conservation area under the British Columbia Local Government Act) is a geographically defined area designated by municipal by-law because its buildings, streetscapes and landscape have collective cultural heritage value that exceeds the value of any individual property within it. Designation is accompanied by a district plan setting out the heritage attributes, objectives and conservation guidelines, and once in force, alteration, new construction and demolition within the district require a heritage permit from the municipality. The instrument protects the character of a place — scale, rhythm, setback, materials and street trees — rather than a single landmark, which is what individual designation does.

(f) Environmental assessment. Environmental assessment is a legislated planning and decision-making process that identifies, predicts, evaluates and mitigates the environmental — and increasingly the health, social and economic — effects of a proposed undertaking before an irreversible decision is taken. In Canada it operates at two levels: federally under the Impact Assessment Act (2019), administered by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada for designated projects, and provincially under regimes such as the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act (2018) and Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act, the latter including the Municipal Class EA that governs most municipal infrastructure works. Its defining features are a structured alternatives analysis, mandatory public participation and consultation with Indigenous Nations, and enforceable conditions attached to the approval. Assessment may be applied to a single project or, in strategic form, to a plan or policy.

(g) Flood plain. The flood plain is the land adjoining a watercourse, lake or coastal water that is inundated by a design flood event — commonly the 1 in 200 year event in British Columbia, and the 1 in 100 year or a historical regional storm in parts of Ontario. It is conventionally divided into the floodway, the central channel and adjacent land that conveys the flood flow and where development is prohibited, and the flood fringe, where shallower slack water permits development provided the structure is flood-proofed to a flood construction level set above the design flood with a freeboard allowance. It is regulated through conservation authority regulations and provincial policy in Ontario, and through floodplain bylaws, Official Community Plan hazard designations and covenants in British Columbia, and mapping is now being revised in most jurisdictions to reflect climate-driven changes in design storms and sea level.

(h) Site plan control. Site plan control (Ontario Planning Act s. 41) is a municipal power to require, before a building permit is issued, approval of the detailed design of a development site: the location and massing of buildings, vehicular access and internal circulation, parking and loading, pedestrian walkways, lighting, landscaping, screening and buffering, grading and stormwater management, waste storage, and, in areas so designated, exterior design and sustainable design elements. Approval is secured through a site plan agreement, registered on title and backed by financial securities, which binds the owner to build and maintain what was approved. It is the tool that governs how a permitted use is executed on a site, as distinct from zoning, which governs whether the use is permitted at all; note that Ontario has since removed most small residential development from its scope. In British Columbia, the development permit issued for a designated development permit area performs the equivalent function.