Photo: District of Peachland

What do you mean a house can’t have two kitchens?

Peachland councillors were surprised to learn their own bylaws – and those in neighbouring municipalities – don’t allow single-family homes to have two kitchens.

Only Lake Country allows it, under certain conditions, a chart presented at a morning council meeting showed.

That information was provided during an hour-long discussion about proposed revisions to Peachland’s secondary suite policy.

A section about decommissioning secondary suites – which council determined was too detailed – refers to removing a second kitchen in the home.

Stove removal is how the municipality confirms a suite is no longer a separate part of the home, council heard.

Some councillors thought that was an unnecessary requirement. Coun. Alena Glasman declared that and other regulations smacked of dictatorship.

“I as a resident would fight you in court,” she said. “Who is this municipality to act like a dictator towards the residents that have paid their own money to live here?”

“Without allowing a second kitchen just totally baffles me,” Glasman said. “There’s multiple reasons that somebody would have a second kitchen. Religion is one of them. Kosher kitchens ... what about people with celiac disease?

“We are putting a bylaw that is literally stepping on toes of so many individuals right now. This is a mess. This is something that needs to be fixed now ... We need to go back to being human.”

The discussion started with Coun. David Collins requesting that suites built and approved before Peachland regulated secondary suites be grandfathered.

Glasman complained people with older suites that weren’t licenced could be forced by the municipality to pay thousands of dollars to bring them up to current standards.

“Who are you or we to decide that,” she asked.

“Council has the authority to regulate suites,” responded Planning Director Darin Schaal. Enforcement is typically complaint driven," he explained later.

“So the Local Government Act requires us to be dictators to our residents,” said Glasman.

Efforts to rewrite the secondary suite policy began as an attempt to insert flex suites into the policy, but councillors had other issues they wanted to raise when it was brought up at an earlier meeting.

Flex units are small secondary suites Peachland requires in some new developments.

“Although residential flex units were introduced into the Zoning Bylaw in 2017, none have been built in Peachland,” a report to council said.

“I’m not sure that the marketplace is really going to go for them much because they are really small bachelor suites,” said Collins. “I don’t know how popular they’re going to be. I have a feeling a lot of them are just going to sit there.”

Mayor Patrick Van Minsel said the municipality would be better off taking a cash payment from developers in lieu of the suites.

To date, there are 80 registered suites in Peachland, with 14 in-stream applications, the report to council said, although councillors said there are likely many more unregistered suites.