Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 24/99) - The new and improved proposed zoning bylaw is up for discussion, and you're invited.

The draft bylaw first appeared last fall. The city's planning and lands department has made revisions to the bylaw based on a round of public meetings held in October.

A second round of consultations on the revised bylaw is slated for March 1 and 2. Both meetings start at 7 p.m. in city council chambers. Information packages are available at City Hall.

The zoning bylaw regulates how every piece of property in the city will be used, proscribing uses and detailed specifications for development.

Senior Planner Monte Christianson told council the department will take another look at the bylaw after the public meetings, make any revisions it feels are warranted, then bring it to a city committee for further debate.

One councillor complimented director of planning and lands Bob McKinnon and department staff on their handling of the proposed change.

"I was nervous, as a lot of people were back in October, that you were just going to push this through," said Peggy Near. "But I think you've done a really good job on it."

Coun. Ben McDonald asked what level of detail the meetings would go into, specifically whether there would be a clause-by-clause or general review of the bylaw.

Council members agreed, the public meetings will be the time to deal with the bylaw in detail or in general terms.

Council may elect to hold more public meetings. Either way, before it becomes law, the proposed bylaw will be subject to at least one more public meeting before council.

Most significant among the revisions to the bylaw is the elimination of two new designations that the department proposed be applied to portions of Yellowknife Bay and Back Bay.

Clearly designed to regulate houseboats, the Water Management Areas, as water zones are known, included the same detailed requirements for height, floor area, location and usage as are applied to land developments.

The designation for the western shoreline of Latham Island, which residents opposed during the first round of consultations, has also been changed.

The draft bylaw had proposed the strip of between residential lots and the lake be zoned Growth Management, a new designation which allows a rafts of uses.

Under the revised scheme, half of that area is zoned parks and recreation and the rest Nature Preserve.

The change came with the provision that the area may be rezoned once the Waterfront Management Study is completed.