Of course everything seems funny after it is done but I cant emphasize just how important it is to stay on top of every little process during the construction and this story just illustrates this.
We completed our purchase of our home and accepted title in November 2012.
From November until January 2013, we had to make a final decision on a builder/ designer and make a preliminary decision on our drawing to submit for zoning certificate.
The drawings do not have to be finalized here but the placement of the house on the property and the size, height and exterior dimensions of the house have to be finalized here for the zoning examiner to make a final decision on the applicable zoning bylaws.
We waited 6 weeks to hear from the zoning examiner and after this time, we received a letter that looked like this:
We new enough of the zoning bylaws in our area to realize we would likely need to ask for a variance on our house. Fortunately, we also new enough about our zoning bylaws to realize that after taking 6 weeks to write this letter, the zoning examiner in fact had applied the wrong zoning bylaws to our house!
If you look closely in the letter, there is a line on the document that stated our ‘property is zoned S-1-32-43-49-65-93. These letters are in fact referring to sections of the municipal zoning bylaws that apply to our house. They are taken from a map of our area that divides blocks and streets according to the zoning bylaws that apply to that area. The maps are available from our city and fortunately for us, I already had a map and I knew that the block those string of letters and numbers were referring to was in fact referring to the WRONG STREET!
I spent the next week, emailing the builder, designer, zoning examiner trying to point out that the zoning certificate did not in fact apply the correct bylaws to our house. It wasn’t until I approached the zoning examiner at the city office with the letter and the map that I was able to prove I was correct. Even at this time, with the letter and the map placed right in front of him showing how our house in fact was placed in a different area than indicated on the letter, his first question was ‘where did I get the map?’. Well the answer to that was simple because I got the map from them! The same city that gave me the wrong letter!
What took an initial 6 weeks to write an incorrect letter was corrected in 2 hours and I than received a new letter in the mail that looked like this.
You can see that the property is now zoned correctly at S-1(or 3)-30-43-48-62-80L-93 and the bylaws that apply to our house are completely different. The reason is obvious to us who live in the area. The original letter placed our house in an area of our neighbourhood where the properties are 250′ deep. However in the actual area where our house is zoned, the properties are 130′ deep. For this reason, the front yard set backs are completely different.
What a mistake that would have made if our house was built 3 meters behind the frontage of both of our neighbours! That’s almost 10 extra feet in the front and 10 extra feet less in the back!
Pay attention to every little detail you can!
Building Our Dream Home 