When Coquitlam introduced its first zoning bylaw in 1947 it was 12 pages long.
Fast-forward 73 years and the document has grown to fill an entire binder as the number of regulations for how properties can be used and developed has ballooned. Many of the rules are obsolete today but are still on the books, prompting a staff review of the city’s commercial zone with an eye toward reducing some of the unnecessary red tape.
“These are the types of regulations that have cropped up over time as we have amended the zoning bylaw over the last 70 years and they have piled on top of each other to create the series of regulations we have today,” said Andrew Merrill, Coquitlam’s manager of community planning.
“We are looking at trying to clear away some of that to have a crisp, clean and clear zoning bylaw that makes sense to our applicants and also for our staff to administer.”
One example Merrill highlights as a regulation the city could probably stand to get off its books deals with reducing salons.
These businesses, where people would place a vibrating leather strap around their stomach in an effort to lose weight, fell out of fashion years ago, but are still regulated under the city’s zoning bylaw.
“The CS2 zone specifically calls out a 100-year-old form of weight loss that nobody does anymore as something that is critical for our zone to regulate and control,” Merrill said.
The obsolete regulations can sound funny, but they do have an impact on how businesses are run in Coquitlam.
Gas stations, for example, are extremely limited in the types of products they can sell besides gas, which is why there are so few attached convenience stores or fast-food restaurants at service stations in Coquitlam, Merrill said. (They are allowed to sell artificial Presto fire logs, according to the zoning bylaw, he notes).
Another regulation states that a business can only conduct music lessons if it also sells music supplies and instruments.
“Because if you teach music without doing that, the world will collapse,” Merrill said sarcastically.
According to a staff report, the commercial zoning regulations are overly specific and very restrictive. By consolidating some of the similar uses into general categories, the city hopes to make its regulations more flexible, the document states.
Consultation with the business community began in February and March and bylaw amendments are expected to be before council for first reading later in the spring.
