We submitted our revised rezoning package March 14 and received comments back from the City last week. We waited longer than we’d hoped for this response, but I’ve come to accept that things taking longer than hoped is standard operating procedure when developing a project.
Granted, we also threw a couple of wrenches into the process by pushing back on two of the City’s requests from the first round:
- The City asked us to provide an additional 1.4 m Statutory Right-of-Way in addition to the 1.0 m already required between the property line and the back of the parking stall (see this post for details). In Round 2 of comments, they have removed this request. Phew! As one of our project goals is to preserve as much backyard green space as possible, this is an excellent outcome. We can now move the building closer to the front of the lot as originally intended.
- The City had also asked if we were willing to sign a covenant to show we are serious about pursuing Passive House. Initially, we said yes to keep things moving, but then we thought about it some more and talked to a few friends about their painful experiences with covenants, and concluded that we’d be better off avoiding if possible.
A covenant is a legal encumbrance that gets attached to a property and stays there for the life of the property (in some cases), or is there until you have met certain conditions and it can be removed. In our case, the covenant would say that we are designing and building to the Passive House standard and when the city is satisfied that we are indeed building to the standard, then the covenant can be removed. The problem is that both the adding and removing of a covenant means thousands of dollars in legal fees that provide no lasting benefit to the project.
If we weren’t proposing to go well beyond code, we wouldn’t be facing these legal costs. So we are being penalized, not encouraged, for going above and beyond. This didn’t feel right and we believed it wasn’t what the City was going for either, so we wrote a letter suggesting that we instead demonstrate that we have engaged a Passive House Certifier to review and certify the project. This in itself is a several thousand dollar endeavor – but at least it is one that will have a lasting benefit on our project.
The City of Vancouver takes a similar approach. In Vancouver, Passive House is an accepted rezoning path – meaning, to rezone in that city, you have to go better than code minimum, and Passive House is one approved way to get there. No covenants are required, but their code inspectors have the authority to shut down a job site if they find that you are not building to the permitted documents. They also now have several Passive House trained staff, one of whom will be assigned to your project to help you work through the process.
Happily, the City of Victoria appears to be in agreement (or at least not opposed?), and asked us to update our letter to Mayor and Council to reflect this proposed approach.
Next Steps: We now have to update our drawings to remove any reference to the extra Statutory Right-of-Way, respond to a few other minor comments, update our letter to Mayor and Council, and resubmit the whole package.
We think this means that city staff are now preparing their report to the Committee of the Whole, which is a group composed of staff and council and is the last stop before our public hearing. With a little luck we will have an approved rezoning application in hand by mid-summer.
One step closer!
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