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The City of Kelowna's vision for the future may get some pushback from the development community.
"Stop planning new suburban neighbourhoods," reads Kelowna's Draft Official Community Plan, in bold.
It continues, "For the first time in Kelowna's history, the Growth Strategy does not designate any new residential neighbourhoods beyond those that are already signalled for development."
"A statement like that can be a little bit concerning," said Cassidy deVeer. She's President of 3rd Generation Homes and also President of the Central Okanagan Canadian Home Builders Association.
With the plan in draft form, there's still an opportunity to quibble about it before it's finalized and adopted. When we reached out deVeer, she was happy to weigh in.
"People are still going to want single detached homes", she said, "and if we don't provide them for them, then they're just going to choose other communities."
But the document has a lot of support as written. "This isn't that new," said Councillor Loyal Wooldridge. "We have to think differently, we have to grow differently and that means we need to plan differently."
Going forward, deVeer expects the development community to push back against the hard-line on new neighbourhood development and the impact it will make single detached homes even less affordable.
"If we don't have single-family homes for people to buy the prices are just going to go up," she said. "So it's about making sure we have an appropriate balance of housing in our community."
On the other hand, Wooldridge argues that far-flung subdivisions cost all of us. "It's very expensive to move infrastructure up into the sprawling neighbourhoods, but even more so, it's hard to maintain it in 20 or 30 years' time."
Still, the Draft Community Plan also projects an expected 50,000 people will likely move into the city over the next 20 years, so there's plenty for the development community to do regardless.
"You have to adapt as a builder," acknowledged deVeer. "Some people do infill projects so you maybe bulldoze a small house, dividing a property and building multiple homes on it."
Wooldridge expects there will be pushback to parts of the new OCP, but argues that to realize the community's vision for the future, the city will need to have a plan.
"An OCP is a guiding document and there will be changes here and there. It's not concrete set in stone," he said. "A landowner always has the opportunity to bring something forward."
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