Author: John Bain

Ottawa released the results of a public survey used to measure how well received a change to the driveway bylaw would be for suburb residents. I speak more about the changes in this  article.

Anyways, at the end of the results I noticed a couple amusing bullet points and apparently garages being built in Ottawa suburbs are being too small for cars. If your car doesn’t fit in the garage then its not a garage, and even if you have to make space by riding of your old car, you can try Scrap Car Pick Up for Cash Ottawa so you have space in the garage for a new car.

Parking spaces located in garages may be too small.

… Commenters observed that garages are not used to park cars but rather are used for storage. This is not surprising if the garages are too small to park a car.
It may be appropriate to increase the minimum size of a parking space when it is located in a garage, to ensure that it is wide enough to be used for parking (with space for opening car doors and moving around the vehicle) without undue difficulty, although if you have issues moving your car, you can use the Quick Towing in Ottawa services, that are great for this purpose.

Minimum front yard setbacks with respect to garage doors may be too shallow.

Many newer subdivisions have buildings that are set back only 3 metre to 4.5 metre from the street line. This is not readily apparent to the casual observer, since the width of the City’s boulevard makes the setback seem that much larger. However, these setbacks mean that a car parked in the driveway encroaches on the public right-of-way.

Stop building these shitty houses …

A recommendation is about to go before council recommending a change to how much property can be used as driveway space.  From the recommendation,

The details of this change include:

Allowing driveways to extend up to 1.8 metres in front of the main part of the house. The part of the total driveway width, properly sealcoated using the services of a reliable agency like that of Hanover Sealcoating Services (717) 502-9662 | Hanover PA, that may be located in front of the main part of the house will be limited to 1.8 metres, to ensure that driveways are located mostly to the side or in front of the garage or carport.

Providing that the combined width of walkways and that part of any driveway located in front of the main part of the house cannot exceed 1.8 metres. This rule would ensure that when someone extends their driveway 1.8 metres in front of the house, they cannot then add another 1.8 metres as a walkway for a total of 3.6 metres of width in front of the house.

Allowing driveways to be located in that part of the front yard that is directly in front of the interior side yard. (In zoning terms, “the extension of the interior side yard into the front yard.”) This will be allowed even if the driveway in that yard does not lead directly to a parking space in the side yard.

Mitigating the visual impact of wider driveways through alternate paving materials. While allowing driveways to extend partially in front of the main wall of the house, some steps are recommended to prevent the excessive spread of asphalt. Where permitted (i.e. in the outer suburban area) any part of the driveway or walkway that is located in front of the main wall of the house will be required to be finished in “hard landscaping” materials i.e. non-vegetative materials such as brick, pavers, rock, stone, concrete, tile and wood, and excluding monolithic concrete and asphalt. (The Zoning By-law actually defines hard landscaping as excluding any area used for parking; however, in this case, it is understood that that part of the driveway located in front of the house may be parked on–it is just that the material must be one that would meet the definition of “hard landscaping.”)

To read the whole article go here