Commercial space in residential zone

You can look into having a community facility, such as a doctor’s office. These are typically allowed on the ground floor of a residence.

jimhillra

in General Discussion 8 years and 2 months ago

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Guest User | 8 years and 2 months ago

string(1) "3"
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Client of mine would like to renovate ground floor and possibly second floor as well, if her multi family building in R6A zone. The zone doesn’t have commercial overlay. I first thought this will be possible because many other buildings on the same zone in the neighborhood have ground floor retail…but from looking at codes seems like you can’t have retail at all in R6A with no commercial overlay. Is it possible the other residences with store are just grandfathered when the zoning was different? Would anyone have more knowledge in this? Thank you!

shahnandersen

in General Discussion 8 years and 2 months ago

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Yes, they are grandfathered from a different zoning (on no zoning at all. if built before 1916).

Guest User | 8 years and 2 months ago

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Thank you so much. Is seeking variance to have retail at residential only zone something common at all? I mean, in the same zone in the same neighborhood there are many retails at ground floor. I also looked at historical zoning map and the zone was residential only as far as the record goes, so they must’ve been grandfathered in early 1900s.
And how difficult/long is the process for variance for such cases?

shahnandersen

in General Discussion 8 years and 2 months ago

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I am not a zoning historian, but it is possible that the pre-1961 zoning may have allowed ground fall retail in some residential zones.

As long as the retail use was continuous, no variance would have been necessary to continue the retail uses that were legal in a prior zoning of the site.

For your building without such a commercial use, either a zoning change or a variance would be necessary to put a retail use in this area *BUT* a variance can only be obtained based on a finding of a non-self-imposed hardship related to _this particular building. Based on your description, this is probably not possible to show.