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On Monday, Kelowna council will consider a proposal to allow secondary suites in all single-family homes in the city, and make it easier for Kelowna homeowners to create secondary suites.
In 2012, council adopted a bylaw that “would permit secondary suites within single family dwellings throughout the City of Kelowna and to change the secondary suite zoning classifications.”
But in a report for Monday’s meeting, city planner Adam Cseke points out that the bylaw left out several development zones. He recommends council make changes to allow secondary suites in some of those zones.
Such a change, Cseke says, “can improve policy and zoning to support and to promote the provision of secondary suites across the city.”
Promoting secondary suites suites, he argues, is one of the few ways council can influence housing diversity to try and address the city’s housing issues.
He says secondary suites provide affordable housing “with minimal impact to neighbourhoods” because no new infrastructure is required for people to live in them.
“Accessory suites continue to be an attractive alternative housing arrangement for renters,” Cseke says.
In recent years, as vacancy rates have fallen and rents have spike in Kelowna, a growing number of renters renters faced with a limited selection “found suitable rental accommodations within the stock of available secondary rental units.”
According to his data, there were an estimated 2,103 households living in accessory suites as of October 2014, up from 1,351 during the same period in 2013, and the number has only grown.
Right now, homeowners require a building permit and business licence, to operate a secondary suite. Cseke says those rules were implemented to help council track numbers and help with compliance, but staff are recommending the requirement be scrapped.
He says staff will still be able to track secondary suites through a “legal suite” system.
Council will consider the changes at its Monday meeting.
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