Garage too big, neighbours claim

Rob Turner - Aug 24, 2009 / 1:00 pm CASTANET:

Residents of a Glenmore neighbourhood are shocked and dismayed at what can be built on a residential lot in Kelowna. Their backyard neighbours are building a detached three-car garage with a three-room loft behind an existing residence on Yates Road.The loft is comprised of a recreation room, a craft room and a study room, according to plans filed with the city for the one-and-a-half-storey garage. The garage's footprint is about 90 square metres or about 960 square feet, which is the maximum allowed for an ancillary building on a RU1-zoned lot, says Building and Permitting Manager Mo Bayat. "It's too big and too close to our properties," McTavish Road residents Jim Whaley and Leigh Guillot, who represent a group of neighbours, both agree. "I want to move. I may as well move into an apartment," Whaley observes. "When I go on my deck now, all I see is this dwelling. There's no point in us having a backyard. I have no view anymore." "It's like living downtown," Whaley's neighbour Guillot agrees.

Both Whaley and Guillot are passionate in their disappointment over the new structure at the rear of their backyards, and what they feel it has done to their neighbourhood, but they reluctantly agree that it conforms to City of Kelowna bylaws. So what's the point of their speaking out at this time? To let others know that, "This can happen to your neighbourhood," says Whaley. "This is what the city will allow to be built in your neighbourhood. I want to see (these permitted use) buildings smaller, Whaley says.

The same neighbour had previously applied for rezoning to allow building of a carriage house on the property, but it was ultimately defeated by council on a tie vote after strong neighbourhood opposition. The new garage plans are basically identical to the proposed carriage house plans, according to Whaley and Guillot. The difference, according to Bayat, is one of use, not size or scale. As a garage with a not-for-habitation loft, the building is 100 per cent in compliance with the bylaw, he says. The bylaw permits up to 40 per cent site coverage of an RU1-zoned property, up to 50 per cent when driveways, sidewalks and the like are included, says Bayat. This situation arose because the lots on McTavish Road are rather small and the lots on Yates are rather large. If there becomes "reason to believe" that the loft is being converted to a living suite, the city would send inspectors with the authority to shut the suite down, Bayat says. The owner of the Yates Road property could not be reached for comment.