By Tiffany Goodwein

Councillor proposes laneway homes to ease housing affordability

Sep 17, 2019 | 8:00 AM

With housing affordability a struggle in Vernon and throughout the province, a city councillor would like to see the city open the door to laneway homes as a way to increase the housing supply and provide more affordable housing options.

“I think we are missing an opportunity here,” Coun. Brian Quiring said during Monday’s council meeting.

“Laneway homes provide a great source of affordable housing, because you get the land for free and you can build them relatively inexpensively. We have, I mean, there are back lanes everywhere in this community,” he said.

According to Quiring the city currently has a bylaw that allows someone to build a carriage house as long as the property owner lives in the main house.

“It’s not something that’s urgent, but I would like to get a report back from administration that basically looks at the opportunities that we are missing in terms of laneway homes starting with what areas would they be appropriate based on lot size. Can we look at the opportunity of eliminating the requirement of, in order to do a laneway house, that the owner of the lot needs to be living on the site? Because I just think that stands in the way of these things.”

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Quiring told the gallery that he got inspired to bring up the idea of laneway homes after attending a conference that looked at how they are helping to ease the housing crisis in Vancouver.

“This just fits totally within our strategy of affordable housing,” he said.

Coun. Scott Anderson stated that while he thinks laneway homes are a great idea, he has concerns about parking.

A full report, including the impact on parking, will be brought back by staff at a future council meeting.

by Tiffany Goodwein

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