
Landowners with property inside the boundaries of the Saskatoon North Partnership for Growth (P4G) Planning District got a first-hand look at how a proposed new zoning bylaw will impact them at an open house in Martensville on Wednesday, September 9.
The open house is part of a public consultation process that continues online via the P4G website (www.partnershipforgrowth.ca) until September 23.
The P4G Planning District will replace the existing Corman Park-Saskatoon Planning District.
“This is all new content,” said Corman Park Director of Planning Rebecca Row in an interview at the open house September 9. “When the P4G process started back in 2014, the term ‘regional plan’ was used to describe where we wanted to be in the future as we planned for growth for a population of one million people.”
By 2017, the P4G’s five municipal partners (Corman Park, Saskatoon, Warman, Martensville and Osler) endorsed in principal the broad vision for the regional plan. Since then, discussions by municipal representatives fine-tuned the regional plan into an Official Community Plan (OCP) which is required to create the P4G Planning District. The OCP will come before a public hearing and joint meeting of all five councils on September 24 for debate and potential adoption.
P4G Executive Director Neal Sarnecki said while the OCP outlines the overall direction and policy for the new P4G Planning District, the proposed zoning bylaw contains the nuts and bolts of how those policies are implemented.
“The intent of this open house and the online consultation is to provide landowners and the public with information and answer their concerns and questions,” said Sarnecki. “We want to make sure people are heard and their concerns are addressed.”
Row said while the P4G OCP bylaw needs to be adopted by all five municipal councils, the P4G Planning District Zoning Bylaw must be adopted by Corman Park council only.
“With the zoning bylaw, as long as any proposed changes are in alignment with the high-level OCP, then at the end of the day it is only Corman Park council that has to approve that zoning bylaw,” said Row. “That is how it currently is now with the Corman Park-Saskatoon Planning District, because the lands involved are in Corman Park, and if you’re just rezoning land, that’s the responsibility of the municipality in which the lands are located.”
Sarnecki said the zoning bylaw is aimed at ensuring that land uses within the P4G Planning District does not adversely prejudice future development in those areas.
At the open house event, several illustration boards provided examples of differences between the new P4G zoning bylaw and the existing Corman Park-Saskatoon Planning District zoning by law.
Row said many of these changes are the result of suggestions from, and discussions with, landowners in Corman Park.
“Many people have come to us and said, for example, that they want to build accessory buildings that total square footage larger than their house, so that is included in the new bylaw.”
She added that suggestions from the public are encouraged at this stage, because the intent is to have the new planning bylaw adopted by the end of the calendar year.