WATERLOO — Waterloo is considering changes to planning rules in an effort to guide development near five priority light rail transit stations.

On Monday, council heard details from staff on proposed changes to the official plan, zoning bylaw and urban design guidelines.

“Watching it evolve has been remarkable,” Coun. Mark Whaley said of the station area planning.

A decision on the proposed changes will be made at a later date.

The proposed changes come out of the city’s station area planning process, which is intended to capitalize on the Region of Waterloo’s light rail transit project by encouraging specific types of development and uses.

The city wants to enhance employment areas, establish new street and trail connections, create new public spaces, enhance existing streets for all users and plan for activity nodes around stops with high quality development.

Adam Lauder, city policy planner, said the plans focus on intensification along the route while protecting existing neighbourhoods.

“What we tried to do is really identify that stable neighbourhoods should continue to be what they are and focus on what other intensification opportunities exist,” he said.

All three local cities worked with the region on a community-building strategy a few years ago. With public input, the strategy created visions for each of the station areas along the 19-kilometre light rail corridor from Conestoga Mall in Waterloo to Fairview Park mall in Kitchener.

The cities are now making station-area plans. They are the cities’ opportunity to guide how development will take place within 800 metres of light rail transit stops.

Each plan will include land-use rules such as density requirements and zoning, transit-oriented development guidelines, parking management strategies and implementation plans.

Waterloo Coun. Diane Freeman took issue with the possibility that drive-through uses might be allowed in some areas.

“I’m sorry but I don’t understand when we’re talking about traffic demand management programs why we would include any language that would support auto-centric use,” she said.

Lauder said the city has to find a balance and that it would be difficult to allow surface parking but ban drive-through uses. “We’re having to kind of walk a bit of a fine line there,” he said.

Freeman wasn’t the only one with concerns.

Agents for three city property owners told politicians they’re generally supportive of the proposals, but warned the city not to over regulate.

Carol Wiebe of MHBC Planning, speaking on behalf of Steelcraft Properties Inc., which owns the property at 446 Albert St., said if the policies are too restrictive, council will be dealing with a lot of requests for site-specific zoning and official plan amendments.

“We need to make sure the policies and framework provide the right level of direction and vision that the city wants to achieve in the station areas, but provides flexibility so that the ultimate development respects the changes in the marketplace or the characteristics that are influencing development,” she said.

Dan Currie, also of MHBC, spoke on behalf of McQuarrie and Associates, owner of 561 King St. N., and said there needs to be more flexibility in the regulations.

Greg Romanick of Stantec Consulting spoke on behalf of Schlueter Holdings, which owns properties at 551 and 400 Conestoga Rd. and 615 and 625 Davenport Rd., questioned the proposed plans’ restrictive policies in relation to auto uses and auto sales.

The plan talks about minimizing parking and auto uses, and buffering and setting back parking facilities so they are less visible.

“We understand the idea of trying to diminish the prominence of that but we think there might be other ways that may be less extreme,” Romanick said.

For the changes to planning rules, staff generally focused on areas within 400 metres of stops.

Anticipated changes include:

• Establishing new street and active transportation connections
• New public spaces
• Encouragement of residential uses on employment lands
• Redesignating several properties in the Conestoga station area from corridor commercial to mixed use office
• Not permitting some automobile uses within 250 metres of stops
• Not allowing drive-through uses within certain distances from stops
• Allowing offsite parking as long as parking is provided within 250 metres.