After four years in the making, council for the RM of Hanover has finally been able to give third and final reading to its new development plan and zoning by-law.

Planning Manager Jeremy Neufeld says some of the changes in their new development plan include re-designating certain areas of the municipality as well as increasing rural residential area and creating better policies for urban development. But Neufeld notes the changes that will affect the most residents is in their new zoning by-law.

"We made changes to our secondary suite rules which allows for greater flexibility," Neufeld indicates, "we increased the size limits of accessory buildings, like shops and garages, which will make things easier for people to get permits for that."

He notes the municipality receives numerous variance applications for shops and garages and adds about 99 percent of them are approved by council. Since these requests are being approved anyway, Neufeld says the municipality has set a realistic size limit with hopes of having less public hearings and let council deal with the matters that require more thought and deliberation.

"All around with the zoning by-law, the big focus was looking at how can we make things easier, how can we reduce the number of hearings that we're having and at the same time, maintain proper control with activity and I think we've found a good balance here."

Neufeld adds they will have to go through this process once again in five years.