Nine days after the provincial deadline, City of North Vancouver council has passed bylaws intended to meet the province’s mandate for more diverse housing in “restricted” single-family neighbourhoods. But the new rules approved by council on June 9 are expected to bring only “nominal” change, according to staff.
The province’s Bill 44 required municipalities to update their bylaws to allow four to six units on single-family properties – depending on their lot size and proximity to transit – if the properties were previously limited to detached homes, homes with a secondary suite or coach house, or duplexes.
Because the city already allows both secondary suites and coach houses in most zones, staff said most properties would be exempt from the rules requiring multi-plexes.
When council last debated the matter in May, staff estimated the new rules would still apply to 880 properties with the potential to add another 1,000 new residences. Despite a June 1 deadline looming, council voted at that time to send the matter back to staff to focus on “improved livability.”
Rather than rewrite the bylaws to include more four- and six-plexes, council instead opted to remove the minimum lot width requirements for coach houses, putting almost every lot in the city in compliance with the letter of the province’s law.
Just 35 properties will be eligible for the type of multiplex housing intended by the provincial legislation.
“The proposed changes are not likely to result in significant changes in building permit volumes,” the staff report notes.
One resident spoke out against council’s watering down of the small-scale multi-unit housing rules.
Sarah Robertson said she would like to redevelop her house into strata units in keeping with the provincial vision so that her adult children and grandchildren could be close together in their home community. The basement suites and coach houses council is offering up instead are no substitute, she added.
“Accessory suites are often below ground, limited to under 1,000 square feet, and do not provide construction financing conditions,” she said. “These housing units don’t get built because the economic constraints around small housing units don’t make sense for young families. Strata housing is a form of housing that will actually get built. Our community urgently needs more housing for North Vancouver young families in particular. They need housing units that are not small apartments or their parents’ basement suites.”
Council adopted the new rules unanimously.
Despite the minimal impact the change was expected to bring, council members took aim at the province for meddling in land-use planning, traditionally the domain of municipal councils who need to also plan for transportation and demands on infrastructure.
“I can say that every mayor, every council, feels incredibly frustrated with the amount of what we consider to be overreach by the province and imposition in terms of telling us what we must do in our community,” said Mayor Linda Buchanan, encouraging people not happy with the provincial housing edicts to take it up with their MLA.
And Buchanan defended the city’s long history of being pro-housing while also considering “what makes sense for the community.”
“We have been a city that’s delivered housing in a very planned and purposeful and intentional way for decades,” she said. “We want to do this right. We don’t want to rush ahead and have some unintended consequence that is much harder to manage.”
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