City staff to do more homework before allowing secondary suites in Kamloops

KAMLOOPS – A councillor's effort to loosen current zoning bylaws to allow secondary suites within single-family homes across the city needs more research from city staff before moving forward.

At Kamloops city council's regular meeting yesterday, July 17, councillors carried a motion 6-3 to have council direct city administration staff to bring forward amendments to current zoning bylaws that would make applying for a rezoning application less timely and expensive for a homeowner looking for a legal secondary suite permit.

"The cost is $1,500 for a rezoning fee and then you have to go through an eight-step process which could take up to four months — and that's just for the rezoning part of it," Coun. Kathy Sinclair, who brought the motion forward, said.

The current process also requires an application to be brought to council meetings and a public hearing, which has resulted in some residents choosing to forget the process altogether and put in suites anyways, resulting in many illegal secondary suites across the city.

Cities such as Kelowna have already made rezoning changes in the past to deal with a similar situation.

"My motion isn't about having a massive crackdown on existing (illegal) suites," Sinclair said. "The goal is to increase housing supply."

Sinclair said the changes to allow secondary suites in all single-family homes across the city will help alleviate Kamloops's current razor-thin vacancy rate which currently sits at 1.1 per cent, and is a solution to the city's shortage of affordable housing situation.

"We are still at the beginning of the process, so council voted for staff to prepare a report to look at different options," Sinclair said.

The report will look at parking issues and how the city plans to deal with non-conforming secondary suites.

"It will look at how we see this rolling out and of course there will be opportunity for public engagement," Sinclair says.

The report will return back to Kamloops city council in the first quarter of 2019.

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