qathet Regional District (qRD) planning committee has defeated a motion to allow an accessory building on a property at 7-3965 Yaroshuk Road.
At the February 25 planning committee meeting, directors were to consider endorsing a Nootka Street zoning amendment bylaw and forward the bylaw to the March 11 meeting for first and second reading. The zoning amendment bylaw was to permit an existing accessory dwelling unit that measures 1,200 square feet at the Yaroshuk Road location.
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said that at a meeting in November, and there was a motion referred to staff to amend the Nootka Street zoning bylaw to permit accessory dwelling units for essentially all parcels of land.
“I am wondering what is the status of that motion that was referred to staff,” said Gisborne.
General manager of planning services Laura Roddan said all the directives that come forward from committee and board meetings go into a work plan and staff deal with them in order. She said there are several other reports outstanding, so the report that Gisborne is referring to is in a list.
Gisborne said the reason why he was bringing the matter up is, if the board was to amend the Nootka Street bylaw to allow an accessory dwelling unit on all parcels in the subdivision, that would make the motion before the planning committee irrelevant. He said he would like to go in the direction of considering accessory buildings in the whole of the Nootka Street zoning area, otherwise the regional district will be stuck with a zoning bylaw that singles out individual parcels, one after another.
Roddan said property owners have the right to make applications and the regional district has an obligation to review those in a timely manner. She said there is a time sensitivity once applications are in process.
Gisborne asked when the report on accessory buildings to all properties was due.
Electoral Area A director and committee chair Jason Lennox said the committee had heard from staff that they are not going to provide a date.
Gisborne said the reason why he was bringing up the matter of a bylaw amendment for the entire Nootka region for accessory buildings for all parcels is because that would be consistent with the Area B official community plan.
“We don’t need to amend the Nootka Street zoning bylaw for one specific parcel,” said Gisborne. “We can do it for all parcels.”
Electoral Area C director and board chair Clay Brander said the committee did not know how long it would be before it received the report that Gisborne was referencing. He said it made sense to move on the application before the committee now.
Gisborne said what he has heard at townhall meetings with residents is that they prefer consistency in the neighbourhood.
“’They don’t like to see one parcel being singled out,” said Gisborne. “That being said, I didn’t hear anyone being opposed to accessory dwelling units up there. I believe that the solution should be making the change for all parcels to allow a secondary suite.”
Electoral Area D director Sandy McCormick said she supported the motion before the committee for the individual parcel of land, but she also supported what Gisborne was advocating.
“Maybe, the solution is to approve this today, and then ask staff for a report on bringing it for the whole zoning area,” said McCormick.
Brander said to his knowledge, there were no other applications for zoning amendments in the Nootka Street area. He said he did not see any reason not to go forward with the application before the committee.
Lennox said he did not see urgency in flowing through with the recommendation before the committee, before the committee could understand the entire area and what the options are.
Roddan explained that the time sensitivity for the application was that the existing 1,200 square foot accessory dwelling unit is a rental unit. She said the property owner has had a great deal of stress leading up to this decision because they found out the building was illegal. She said the owner paid the application fee and had done a lot of work, and had a sign on the property for three months indicating what they had paid for.
“The time sensitivity is to give that property owner and their renter certainty and remove that stress,” said Roddan. “They’ve gone through all the hoops and it is straightforward. It has been reviewed by legal and it is a standard amending bylaw.”
Gisborne said he wanted to make a motion that the matter be referred to staff, with the language that is property specific to be removed. The motion, however, failed.
The committee then considered the motion as proposed to consider endorsing the Nootka Street amendment bylaw and it, too was defeated, with McCormick and Brander in favour, and Gisborne and Lennox opposed.
When asked by the Peak whether there would be enforcement for the accessory dwelling unit being non-compliant, Lennox said not that he was aware of.
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