Kelowna to decide on suite issue Monday

By Ron Seymour Sun, March 25, 2007 Daily Courier

The fate of a long-discussed and controversial proposal to streamline the legalization of secondary suites in virtually all Kelowna neighbourhoods will be decided by city council on Monday. Advocates of the plan say it would increase the supply of affordable housing and make home ownership easier by providing people with extra rental income to help with their mortgage payments. Critics say it could fundamentally change the character of existing single-family home neighbourhoods, bringing more people into the areas and lowering property values. In a report to council, city staff suggest homeowners should be able to legalize secondary suites by simply getting a building permit, without their neighbours having any say in the matter. Currently, neighbours can have a voice through the rezoning process. “If the suite meets the building code, we don‘t think it has any real impact on the neighbourhood,” Theresa Eichler, the city‘s social planner, said Friday.

However, the staff report is at odds with the views of the former chairman of the city‘s now-disbanded task force on affordable housing. Coun. Norm Letnick favoured a process by which a building permit for a secondary suite application would only be approved if the homeowner obtained the written consent in advance of people who own adjacent properties. “I felt that was an approach that reflected a balance between promoting more affordable housing and respecting the views of people who moved into a neighbourhood not expecting that a secondary suite would be put into the home right next to them,” Letnick said. Of all the recommendations produced by the task force, the one to streamline the legalization of secondary suites throughout the city has the potential to affect the most people, and it‘s the one that has generated the most public debate. In a letter to the editor last year, Kelowna resident Wade Jenson called the proposal “an attack on responsible home ownership.” “Who really pays the price for this proposal? It is homeowners such as my wife and I who worked long and hard to purchase a home in a quiet neighbourhood in which to raise our children, a home in which we invested fully, believing that we were placing our hard-earned dollars in a single-family-unit neighbourhood,” Jenson wrote.

However, city staff say secondary suites have minimal impact on existing neighbourhoods and describe their easy legalization as the most practical way of increasing the supply of rental housing. “The suites are out there anyway,” Eichler said. “What we‘re suggesting council do is make it easier for people to legalize the suites, so that they provide healthy and safe living conditions that meet the building code.” Seven per cent of all real estate ads examined by city staff last year included references to secondary suites. Of those, 77 per cent were illegal, staff found when looking at City Hall records. If council approves the staff proposal on Monday, here‘s what would happen: -- People who have illegal suites in their homes would need only to apply for a building permit to make them legal, rather than go through a rezoning application, which is currently the case. For a fee of about $40, an inspector would come to the house and make sure it conforms to the building code. If it doesn‘t, the owner would be required to make repairs before it could be legalized. -- Anyone who lives in a home built before 1993 could install a secondary suite by getting a building permit. Neighbours would not be able to object, as they can now through the rezoning process. --

In areas with homes built after 1993, the situation is more complicated. A rezoning application would still be required, because the city wants more power to reject secondary suites. That‘s because officials say the water and sewer lines in newer areas, where the number of people living in a typical home is generally higher than older neighbourhoods, may not be able to support significantly increased populations that might come with many secondary suites. Essentially, the number of secondary suites could be capped in newer neighbourhoods, meaning that those homeowners who get their rezoning applications in early would likely be approved, while those who applied later might be told the infrastructure would not support additional people moving into the area.