Downtown London, Ont. (Source: Jess Gould)
On Tuesday’s city council meeting the council voted to pass the recommendation for a by-law proposed by Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis and Mayor Josh Morgan two months ago. This by-law would change the height limit for all different kinds of buildings in London.
The most notable changes would be the downtown area going 10 storeys higher than the current limit 35 and the new category which is called major shopping area, not to be confused with the existing category called shopping area. The new category, would see it’s limit go up more than double. From six storeys to 15.
A big point of interest during the meeting was the rapid transit corridors. The confusion for some Londoners comes on why different areas of the rapid transit corridor have different height limits. Areas near main streets or stops used to have a height limit of four storeys more than other areas. now that gap is a 10-storey difference.
Lawyer Peter Mancini acknowledges the cities attempts to accommodate to an increase in density. However he is confused about why a transit stop is treated differently than another transit areas.
“Townhouses are faster to build.” says Shawn Lewis the deputy mayor. He added onto to that by pointing out the benefits financially of building more townhouses. A citizen in the audience however had a different view on things. “There is a difference between townhouses and stacked townhouses, they are not the same.” he says.
Many of the developers at the meeting were in favour of the height limits being increased as they believed it could help out the housing shortage. Executive director of London Development Institute, Mike Wallace is in support of the by-law. “Being able to have townhouses, but not stacked townhouses doesn’t make sense, so I appreciate the changes.” says Wallace.
On Sept. 24 city council will have the final vote to see if the by-law is passed and if the height limits can be implemented in the city.
