Peachland council shoots down secondary suite policy

Photo: District of Peachland

Peachland council has shot down a proposed secondary suite policy.

A second attempt to revise Peachland’s secondary suite policy has been shot down.

In February, planning staff presented council with language to add flex units to the policy.

Flex units are small secondary suites Peachland has been requiring in some new developments, although none have been built yet.

Councillors were unhappy with wording about grandfathering existing suites, that banned second kitchens – and questioned whether flex units will help resolve the housing shortage at all.

“I have a few things here that I think were missed,” said Mayor Patrick Van Minsel on Tuesday as the plan was presented again. “We did decide as a council that you had to look at summer kitchens and to allow them.”

The language to allow grandfathering of older suites that were legal when they were built doesn’t apply in Peachland, Coun. David Collins said.

“Right up to 2017, it was ambiguous as to whether a permit was even required …. and we wound up with hundreds of suites non-conforming,” he said. “Now people who want to bring them on board are getting stuck with fairly large bills to upgrade them."

Collins and Van Minsel both said they’d been inundated with emails from residents concerned about costs of legalizing their suites.

“One of the most frustrating things as a councillor is to constantly get emails from residents saying how difficult and onerous it is to legalize a suite,” Collins said.

“It’s having the opposite effect,” he said of the proposed policy. “People are going I’m either not even going to dare approach the district to licence my suite or I’m just going to stop doing this.”

Planning director Darin Schaal didn’t make much headway with his explanation that the policy is not creating new regulations, just stating how existing regulations are enforced.

“This is a policy document and it’s simply intended not to regulate but to provide some guidance to staff and the public in terms how we manage suite processes,” he said.

Councillors said flex suites should have their own policy.

Council voted to defer the proposed policy. It may be months before it comes up again.