The City of Yorkton's Official Community Plan, Zoning Bylaw, and Sign Bylaw are being reviewed, and as part of that process Crosby Hanna and Associates compared the bylaws in Yorkton to those in other areas across the province. Jim Walters with Crosby Hanna and Associates recently spoke at a Chamber of Commerce Luncheon about the differences.
Bylaws were compared to similar laws in Regina, Saskatoon, Swift Current, North Battleford, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Brandon and the Regional Municipalities of Wood Buffalo. The bylaws examined were parking regulations, landscaping regulations, development application fees, special residential use provisions, sign regulations, and zoning district development standards.
Walters says that in general, the city's regulations are more specific in many of the standards. On the other hand, there are provisions which are missing in Yorkton's laws, such are residential secondary suite standards.
For parking, Yorkton has the largest minimum parking stall size among the different areas examined, 16.5 meters compared to the mean value of 15.9 meters in the other cities. The city also requires more parking lot landscaping, with a minimum of one parking space worth of landscaped islands for every twenty spaces. No other city has a specific requirement outside of Regina.
Walters says in this case, the larger space requirement means a lot in Yorkton has to be bigger to have the same number of spaces compared to the rest of the cities compared.
The theme of more specific standards continues to landscaping, which Walters says is more rigorous than other places. He notes that this would also result in better landscaping and more green areas.
Yorkton also has the least expensive development application fees. Walters says that they will be examining the fees with the city to decide on an appropriate cost recovery percentage for the municipality.
One bylaw which Yorkton has that other municipalities do not is a maximum height on commercial buildings of eight storeys, or 33.6 meters. There is also a minimum site width of 10 meters. He recommends that this law is removed, in order to have a greater density in the downtown core.
An area which the city needs to be more specific about is in special use residential provisions. Walters notes that the bylaws don't regulate the number of employees in a home-based business, as well as no provisions regarding secondary suites. He says that the city is preparing a new section of its zoning bylaw to deal with those suites, and says that without that section it can be confusing for people who are looking at that use. He notes that the employees of home-based business need to be regulated in order to deal with potential parking problems within residential neighbourhoods.
In general, Walters says the study will give the city a good idea of what other municipalities are doing as it begins to review its own bylaws.
