City takes another look at secondary suites

By Wolf Depner Western News Staff Oct 03 2007

While yet another report recommended the legalization of secondary suites in Penticton, Mayor Jake Kimberley questioned their effectiveness as council announced yet another meeting to gather public opinion. “Personally, I don’t know if it is going to make a heck of a lot of difference with respect (to affordable housing) because they are already happening out there,” he said. Kimberley offered this assessment when he was answering media questions about a report in which city planner Mike Brown ranked secondary suites among the most effective municipal tools to increase affordable housing during a presentation before council. They supply young families, single parents and active seniors with needed rental housing, said Brown, adding that they also cut the overall cost of housing, because they help home owners pay down their mortgages.

While Kimberley said he understood why Brown recommended legalization, it is not easy as it sounds. That is why the city wants public feedback, he said. “It will provide an opportunity for the public-at-large to respond to the secondary suite issue,” he said, adding that the city is also studying the experiences of other communities with secondary suites before it makes a decision. But he evaded questions about whether secondary suites will be legal when citizens go to the polls in 2008. Kimberley said it is up to council to make a decision once it has heard from the public following the upcoming public forum still looking for a final date. This latest forum would follow at least three local public forums dealing with the issue of affordable housing dating back to 2005 when the Penticton Affordable Housing group sponsored a special election forum on the topic.

Kimberley defended the upcoming hearing, because it will give the public a chance to study Brown’s report in greater detail. It now joins a growing body of reports supporting the legalization of secondary suites, dating back to at least 2004 when the city’s social development advisory committee considered a comparable report from the Penticton and Area Women’s Centre first published in 2003, more than four years ago. In 2005, that same committee recommended that the city legalize secondary suites across Penticton — a move which staff supported at the time. “We (staff) are suggesting that the city allow suites across all neighbourhoods, with conditions, of course,” said Donna Butler, city planner in February 2005.
That would address the “realities” of the local housing market that include low rental vacancy rates and high housing prices, she said. “It recognizes the lack of affordable rental housing,” she said. “It is a just need that is very apparent in Penticton and, in most communities, secondary suites are a significant housing form.”

Kimberley also generally agreed with the proposed legalization during the election campaign and promised prompt action after he assumed office. He repeated this promise a year later. The issue of secondary suites would come forward “fairly quickly” now that the “huge, time-consuming” South Okanagan Event Centre is “out of the way,” he said in January. But the city’s appetite for legalizing secondary suites has appeared diminished in recent months. Council initially cut research money for the proposed legalization from its budget, only to restore it after complaints from affordable housing advocates. Even staff admitted this year that the issue has not received as much attention, prompting concerns Coun. Dan Ashton and Coun. John Vassilaki, as they pushed for the legalization of secondary suites. They are opposed by primarily by Coun. Joanne Grimaldi, who fears legalization would set an inappropriate legal precedent and cause a host of problems in residential areas.

City administrator Leo den Boer meanwhile raised eye-brows during Monday’s meeting with comments that suggested the city had done little work on the issue. “We’ve not explored that in any detail, either,” he said. He later withdrew his comment, noting that staff have done a lot of work on the issue during the last several years. Several councillors also used the occasion of Brown’s presentation to complain about the lack of support from higher levels of government. Housing, said Coun. Garry Litke, is a provincial responsibility. While it has somewhat helped people with disabilities, it has done nothing for low-income citizens, he said. Grimaldi, meanwhile, questioned the existence of a housing crunch when she wondered whether current complaints about housing are coming from special interest groups. Housing, she said, has always been an issue. Litke responded by saying that all segments of society are struggling with the effects of rising housing costs which threaten to undermine the economic future and social balance of the city.