BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in reference to 'Chime in: City hosting public meeting on new zoning bylaw,' published Oct. 30, and 'Lights out! Public meeting on proposed city-wide zoning bylaw goes dark,' published Oct. 1.
What residents presently enjoy about their neighbourhood and why newcomers decide to move to Barrie will change if city council passes its proposed zoning bylaw.
The bylaw proposes to allow four-storey apartment buildings in every residential neighbourhood. Suddenly you could be surprised by a new four-storey apartment block being built next door, without your prior knowledge as the bylaw will grant zoning approval in advance.
There will be no requirement for council to consult the neighbourhood prior to that construction, and no residential neighbourhood would be exempt from this change.
Developers could buy two or three single-family homes, tear them down and change the face of your quiet neighbourhood where you have financially invested, expected to raise your family or retire.
No longer would you be surrounded by the type of homes that presently exist in your area. There will be no consideration of the impacts of shadowing, parking lots in the back yards, noise, lighting and sun reflection.
I feel betrayed as a property owner and voter in Barrie. Where else in the province is this form of rezoning taking place?
Check out Barrie’s proposed zoning map and consider the implications of how your daily life could be affected if council approves their plan.
If your property is proposed to be zoned NL1, NL2 or NL 3, you are affected. How informed is your ward councillor of what Barrie will be like to live in if the proposed changes become our new zoning bylaw?
Property values will drop because of the uncertainty of potential neighbourhood changes.
Council should slow down and carefully consider how their plan will take away what residents respect about Barrie’s existing process and the relationships between council and citizens.
People need to be confident that they will be comfortable continuing to live here without fearing the unknown.
Cathie and Jerry Bruce
Barrie
