L’évolution du droit de l’urbanisme au Québec en 2002, 2003 et 2004

Abstract

In 2002, the Parliament of Quebec gave to the councils of a local municipalities the power to adopt a conditional use by-law and a by-law concerning specific construction, alteration or occupancy proposals for an immovable. Other amendments to An Act respecting land use planning and development concern the maximum number of places that may be used for identical or similar uses, the building of residences for the ederly, the protection of lakeshores, riverbanks, littoral zones and floodplains, the regional county municipality land use planning and development plan, the planting or felling of trees and the territorial development plans. In 2003, a bill granted the citizens of certain municipalities the right to expresse their opinion on the changes imposed since 2000 in municipal territorial organization. Two other bills increased the powers of the borough councils of Ville de Quebec and Ville de Montreal in matters of land use planning and development. In 2004, amendments to An Act respecting land use planning and development concern public safety, occupancy and maintenance of buildings, and hog farms. Quebec cases studied the civil liability of municipalities in the exercise of their power to make planning by-laws, procedural fairness in weighing the merits of rezoning requests and the judicial discretion on a request for an order of cessation of a use of land or a structure or the demolition of a structure incompatible with planning by-laws. Quebec cases considered also the objectives of the site planning and architectural integration programs, the criteria permitting to assess whether these objectives have been achieved, the exemption of approval by way of a referendum when the zoning by-law is amended for the sole purpose of conformity, the effects of a change of use on vested rights and the opposability of an order of demolition to the subsequent purchaser of an immoveable to the town planning.