At Committee of the Whole on December 2, Council directed staff to prepare the Commercial Node Zoning Bylaw for readings. The report proposes zoning amendments that support commercial uses in existing and potential future neighborhood nodes. To address the lack of a neighbourhood commercial node in the Garibald Highlands, as identified in the analysis phase, staff propose an incremental change to add neighbourhood commercial uses to the existing Residential 1 (R-1) Zone that would only apply to properties that have frontage along The Boulevard. 

Given that a large majority of the existing nodes are within flood hazard areas, the report proposes an approach to enhancing the existing C-1 and C-6 Zones: 

• In the C-1 Zone, a minor expansion of commercial uses is proposed by adding assembly and indoor recreation to the list of permitted uses;
• In the C-6 Zone, assembly, entertainment, and restaurant uses are proposed to be added to the list of permitted uses;
• In the C-1 Zone, to ensure any future development contains commercial uses and is not developed solely as a residential development, staff propose adding a percentage employment space requirement into the zone to ensure that a minimum of 20% of the floor area of a development is dedicated to employment space;
• In the C-1 Zone, staff have increased the maximum height from 10.68 m (three-storeys) to 15.0 m (four-storeys) to provide an additional storey of development thereby compensating for the proposed 20% minimum employment floor area requirement. 

More information can be found in the full report by District staff.