Basement suite (Photo 98671005 © Madhourse | Dreamstime.com)

By Kevin Rothwell

Trying to add rental inventory

Vernon streamlines secondary suite legislation

May 31, 2021 | 5:00 AM

The City of Vernon is cutting a lot of red-tape to try encourage additional secondary suites in single family homes, and construction of carriage houses, to try ease the housing crisis.

Council has already eliminated business license fees for secondary suites, and lowered or eliminated other fees like additional recycling and garbage charges.

On Tuesday afternoon, several streamlining changes were approved, following a public hearing on amendments to the zoning bylaw.

“The staff did a great job on this. We have been looking for this for quite awhile. To be able to put this out in this busy of a development climate is admirable,” Coun. Brian Quiring stated. “We are looking for a few future revisions, but we are going to turn the heat off for now, so thank you. Good work everybody.”

Council is looking for staff input on a few more changes, including allowing more than one suite per single family home, allowing suites in duplexes, reducing parking requirements and adding additional zones where suites would be permitted.

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Vernon currently has a one per cent rental vacancy rate and many rental homes are being sold, due to a hot seller’s real estate market.

There are currently 135 licensed secondary suites in Vernon. The city only enforces action on illegal suites based on bylaw complaints.

Data from the B.C. Assessment Authority, identifies 1,031 secondary suites within single family dwellings in the city.

For context, there are 17,805 dwelling units in Vernon, of which 8,800 are single family homes. This represents a secondary suite potentially in one of every nine single family homes in the city.