Kelowna council strikes blow against single-family housing construction

KELOWNA – Developers in Black Mountain, Wilden and Southwest Mission need to worry about building more single-family homes in those parts of Kelowna over the next 21 years.

Kelowna city council, over the past few months, has had a number of discussions about how much single-family vs. multi-family housing to build as the city expects 50,000 new residents by 2040.

In September, they agreed on what was called Scenario 2.5, which called for 75 per cent of new housing to be in multi-family buildings in or near five urban town centres.

“On Sept 17, I voted for 2.5,” Coun. Ryan Donn told council today, Dec. 10. “Then you go through an election and a lot of people are talking and you go through public engagement. I personally opt for Scenario 3.”

Donn was joined by Mayor Colin Basran and councillors Charlie Hodge, Mohini Singh and Royal Wooldridge in switching to Scenario 3 which calls for approximately 80 per cent of new housing to be higher density.

City planner Danielle Noble-Brandt told iNFOnews.ca that means staff will have to re-evaluate what single-family rezoning applications they envision being supported because of this change, as those units need to be “assigned” to urban centres.

A number of councillors expressed concern that the change will mean people choose to live in neighbouring communities instead of moving to Kelowna.

Existing single-family developments will not be affected but the areas of Wilden, Black Mountain and Southwest Mission that are not yet zoned single-family but designated as such in the existing Official Community Plan will be reviewed, Noble-Brandt said.

As well, there is an Area Structure Plan currently being drafted for a large single-family housing proposal for a South Mission neighbourhood called Thomson Flats that is expected to come to council next year.

Staff will now take the new direction forward as it drafts a revised Official Community Plan.

— This story was corrected at 8:17 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018 to change Luke Stack to Mohini Singh in the list of councillors who voted aainst Scenarior 2.5 and in favour of Scenario 3.

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