After passing through it’s first reading, changes to the Official Community Plan and Land-Use Bylaws that would allow property owners to construct “Detached Secondary Suites” on their properties have received significant public feedback.
As it stands, the bylaw changes do not limit the size of property where a second house can be constructed, however, they limit the size of a second building to 115 square meters (close to 1200 square feet).
At the open house for these proposed bylaw changes, Peter Williamson mentioned that this bylaw should be called, “the second house bylaw, because that’s what it is,” and said that permission to build these second houses should be limited to larger lots for the sake of privacy between neighbours.
Williamson’s comments echo the perspective of the Bowen Island Eco-Alliance, as outlined last week in their publication The Bowenian.
In that publication, the Eco-Alliance argues that while the bylaw should be supported as a component of creating diverse housing on the island, “the draft bylaws as currently written will have a greater negative consequence than the problem they intend to fix.”
The article goes on to argue that the bylaw changes will lead to an increase in housing density without creating more affordable housing, and will also lead to drinking water shortages, vehicle and ferry congestion, and environmental degradation.
When asked to predict how many property owners might proceed to build detached secondary suites based on the proposed bylaw changes, planner Daniel Martin looked to the bylaw changes made in 2008 that allowed homeowners to create suites connected to their houses.
“Since 2008, twenty-five secondary suite building permits have been approved,” he says.
For Tim Wake, who has been working on the creation of affordable housing on Bowen for close to ten years, this statistic informs his view on the proposal.
“Back in 2008, there was a lot of fear that Bowen’s population would instantly double, but here we are with a relatively unchanged population eight years later,” he says. “There is not a huge economic incentive for homeowners to do this, and I don’t think there is going to be a huge uptake.”
As he sees this being the only clear route to the creation of alternate forms of housing, Wake says he will be focusing his efforts on putting packages together to help people build detached secondary suites.
From a homeowners perspective, Dan Parke and Kathryn Thomson have a 400 square foot office on Cates Hill that they would like to convert to a home and one day live in while renting their current house to a young family.
“For us, this is just one small piece of the puzzle that make it possible for people to live here,” says Thomson.
