The PAC

Tomorrow night we go to the City of Fredericton's Planning Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting. Their approval of our request for a variance is a pre-requisite for our Building Permit application. See the link to the left for the meeting Agenda.

Here's the scoop: Our property is an unusual size, with unusual characteristics. We have no street frontage. Our laneway belongs to the province, so we simply have a right-of-way on the path. City by-laws for properties in the "Heritage District" of Fredericton require that buildings conform to 1.8 metre setbacks from their side lot lines, and a 6 metre setback from the rear lot line. Conforming to this requirement would see our home nearly in the middle of the lot splitting our yard into two pieces too small to be functional. So we've argued that the setback requirement wasn't made for properties like ours, where our neighbor to the rear would only need to conform to a 1.8m setback, and that our proposed location represents the safest, most appropriate correction of our current non-conforming situation. We have asked for a 2.9m variance to be approved.

The staff report has rejected that request, but in it's place has supported a 2.4m variance. They would like us to allow for a "driveway" space on our lot, which would need to be 3.6 m X 6m, thus making our rear setback 3.6m. We're ok with this, and are hopeful that it will pass on Wednesday evening. Fingers crossed!