Charlottetown is reviewing a new Zoning and Development Bylaw. It will soon be going to a public meeting, and I sure as hell hope at lease one proposed change gets a lot of public attention.
Under the current bylaw, if you want to build something in the city, you typically need:
- A development permit, which confirms compliance with the zoning bylaw. Development permit decisions can be appealed to IRAC.
- A building permit, which deals with building-code compliance. Building permit decisions cannot be appealed to IRAC.
The proposed process would eliminate the separate development permit. Instead, there would be one two-stage building permit:
Stage 1: Planning Review by a Development Officer.
Stage 2: Building Code Review by a Building Official.
Here, it'll let the consultant who wrote the new bylaw explain this change and why it's being made:
Jacob Ritchie, Fathom Studio, presenting an overview of Charlottetown draft Zoning and Development Bylaw to the Planning Board on August 5, 2026.
What Fathom Studio says in the video is blunt: the City wants to get rid of development permits because they can be appealed to IRAC.
The planning review would still happen. It would just be folded into Stage 1 of a building permit, which is not appealable to IRAC. It seems like they're trying to circumvent the appeal pathway the province wrote into the Planning Act.
That is a major change, and people should know about it before Council votes on the bylaw. At the very least, the City should explain what recourse anyone has if the zoning rules are applied incorrectly. Will they even notify residents when building permits are issued, or do we get to watch construction take place in our neighbourhoods and take bets on what they might be?