Character

The Vancouver Zoning By-law is prefaced by a definitions section that helpfully illuminates such terms as ‘family’ and ‘adult magazine.’ However, one word is conspicuously absent: character. This slippery term, littered throughout the zoning district schedules, tilts disproportionate power into the hands of the planning department. Ascribing common meaning, consensus, or conventional wisdom to ‘character’ in place of a definition overwhelmingly yields a conservative interpretation. Instead, a new definition, or definitions, might provide the foundation for contemporary practitioners to hold their own on this wrongly overlooked, rightfully contested ground.