Coldstream Holds Public Hearing On Zoning Changes

Sep 17, 2018 | 7:22 AM

The District of Coldstream is holding a public hearing this evening to go over changes to its zoning bylaw.

It’s an all-encompassing change and will be the sixth rewrite since the first one in 1946.

Mike Reiley, Coldstream’s Director of Development Services, says bylaws are tweaked all the time and full re-write helps start with a clean slate.

“Also just the bylaw itself, the terminology in it is somewhat dated. You know, new inclusive language, so instead of talking about families, we talk about household groups.”

While some of the changes are purely housekeeping, other parts bring in new provisions to meet decisions by the provincial government.

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Reiley says it covers a lot of current issues.

“We did a rewrite-slash-update of our Official Community Plan and we wanted to make sure that regulations within our zoning bylaw are consistent with the policy direction that we’ve set out in our OCP.”

You’ll also find language dealing with signage, property setbacks, backyard chickens, off-street parking, the hosting of events on private property and much more.

Reiley says a major area concerns zoning on private property.

One big change is splitting zoning designations for properties in the ALR and out of the ALR, so each will have their own criteria.

“This is going to impact some people. You know where they had zoning that allowed them to do certain things. Now if their land isn’t in the
ALR, we’re saying here are the new things that are allowed on your property. We want people to be aware of that.”

Reiley notes Coldstream has a lot of people living in a small area designated as residential and a much fewer number of people taking up a large area of the community in a rural category.

Land that is now designated RU-2 is going to be split into three categories.

“One being this ALR category. One is, we’re calling it RU -LH, which is large blocks of land, the upper hillsides along the Coldstream Valley. That’s being treated a little bit differently. And then we’ve got areas that are rural but they’re not really farmland, five-ten acre blocks where people just have a house on them. We’re pulling back the amount of agricultural activity you can do on there.”

The public hearing tonight is at 6 o’clock at the municipal hall.

by Tom Mark