City needs assessment shows no need for high-density housing
BC govt legislates zoning changes & forbids public input
Even though communities in Northern British Columbia are not experiencing a housing crisis, the provincial government is continuing to paint the entire province with the same brush, by forcing municipalities to make zoning amendments more suited to large southern cities. If the city doesn’t make the required changes to its zoning bylaws to meet the new legislation, the province will step in and make the changes, with no input from the city.
Fort St. John Mayor Lilia Hansen said that “while we appreciate the challenges, and they are real challenges in the Lower Mainland, in the North we’re not seeing the same ones. And we don’t agree with being painted with the same legislation.”
Director of Planning and Engineering Jennifer Decker and Planning Manager Charlene Jackson presented three possible options to the Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday, which will enable the city to meet the mandatory zoning amendments contained in Bill 44 - Housing Statutes Amendment Act.
Under the Act, the province requires that all local governments must adopt zoning by laws that align with the small-scale multi-unit housing (SSMUH).
The SSMUH came out of the Homes for People Program, which Jackson said was originally test targeted in ten communities and was intended to deliver more homes for people faster in high density communities with extensive transit networks. However, the government appears to have changed its mind and the legislation now applies to all municipalities with populations over 5,000.
In Fort St. John, this means that all low-density zones – R-1, R-1A, R-2, R-4 and R-4A – must be amended to allow four dwelling units on single-family or duplex lots larger than 280 square metres. All of the residential lots in the city exceed this minimum size requirement, with the smallest lots being 372 square metres.
The legislation applies to 5535 parcels in the city, which are considered “restrictive” by the province. All of the parcels could now be upgraded to four “dwelling units” per parcel, as shown on the map. One of these four dwellings must be a primary or principal dwelling unit. Not shown on the map are the land in Garrison Landing and Sunset Ridge which have not yet been subdivided, or the Station and Parkwood.
“It could be considerably a lot more than what you’re seeing,” she said.
The city’s Housing Needs Assessment, which was done in 2020, needs to be updated by December 31, 2024, but the zoning bylaw changes are to be completed by June 30, 2024. The Official Community Plan needs to be updated by December 31, 2025. A host of other bylaws will also need to be updated to bring them into line with the requirements of the new legislation.
“The normal process for this would be to do the Housing Needs Assessment to determine what your community needs, update your OCP accordingly and then your zoning,” Jackson said. “So, this process is pretty much backwards and presents its own set of challenges.”
Among the challenges is the requirement that each “suite” have only one parking space.
“If you take a residential lot and go to multi-dwelling, and you’re only allowed one parking spot for that multiple dwelling, when most houses have two, sometimes three cars, that’s just going to be a nightmare on the street,” Councillor Jim Lequiere said.
Councillor Byron Stewart agreed with Lequiere, and expressed concern that the city may have to look at the width of residential roads, citing 104A Avenue in Sunset Ridge as an example of an area full of duplexes with a lot of on-street parking.
“A lot of people have more than one vehicle, and in our city, it is often not a small car, it’s a larger truck,” Stewart said.
The concept of creating four “dwelling units” on properties designed for one single family dwelling, caused more concern amongst council regarding services, snow clearing, sidewalks, streetlighting and green spaces as well as parking.
“I look at our services, our water and sewer, and that’s going to have to be potentially upgraded to accommodate that extra demand on water and discharge on sewer,” said Councillor Tony Zabinsky. “We might have to put in a new pumping station, a new lift station.”
Decker said that the development cost charge bylaw will have to be updated, but at the moment the infrastructure is sufficient to accommodate some level of growth.
Of the three options the planning department came up with, they recommended Option 1 as the best and least disruptive approach to dealing with the legislation. It provides the most control over community development in the face of the imposed four-unit density. It meets the requirements of the legislation.
Option 1 will maintain the form and character of single family and low-density neighbourhoods from the street while meeting the mandated densities.
“This option allows us to move forward in a planned approach,” said Jackson. “It gives us time to look at how much disruption this is causing in our community, how it affects our service levels. Also, because of the short timelines, we figure this is our best way to move forward.”
While Option 2 allows duplexes and single-family homes to be the primary dwelling on all existing and future R-1 zoned lots, Option 3 is a more open approach which enables different construction types to function as the principal dwelling.
Despite the requirement for four dwellings, Options 1 and 2 both include a maximum of three buildings on a parcel, thus forcing the single-family dwelling to have a suite in the basement.
All three options allow for an increase in the maximum height of the principal residence to 11m, which is three storeys, while the secondary buildings on the parcel would be a maximum of two storeys.
Option 3 could dramatically change the way the city looks and potentially eliminate the R-1 zone altogether, Jackson said. “Basically, everything is new, except for the lot size for small lots. Option 3 is where the province wants us to go. Option 3 is based on ten other communities that are not relative to Fort St. John.”
“In our Housing Needs Assessment, which was done in 2020, one of the recommendations was simply to allow for suites, it didn’t indicate this need,” said Jackson. “And in the RM zone we needed more three storey walk-ups. There was no indication that we needed to have a density of four units per lot.”
Mayor Hansen felt that these changes will dramatically affect property values.
“I’m quite concerned about property owners. You make a large financial investment buying your house, when you bought your land, did you know what your neighbour’s property was zoned at? And now this is changing it,” Hansen said. “That could be quite dramatic, having four units on the property next to you.”
Are the Option 1 changes the bare minimum the city needs to make to meet the guidelines, Councillor Trevor Bolin wanted to know.
“The bare minimum that we have to do is implement four units. We have to allow secondary suites and detached suites on the parcels. We don’t have to change anything else if we don’t want to,” Jackson said. “But we don’t know how the province will respond to that.”
“What if we just do the bare minimum?” asked Zabinsky.
If Fort St. John goes that route, the city will be in good company as the cities of Quesnel, Prince George, Dawson Creek, Williams Lake and Terrace are also looking at simply allowing four units and keeping the existing setbacks, parking and lot sizes the same.
Bolin said he likes Option 1 and appreciated the work Jackson and Decker have done but suggested “skinnying it right down to our minimum, keep our maximums as far as parking and lot coverages go.”
“It’s not that we’re trying to be difficult, but I think if we put this to a public meeting, and it is a bylaw, I believe we would hear NO from the public,” Bolin said.
“The province actually prohibited going to the public for this,” Jackson said. “It’s in the legislation.”
As Bolin noted, in the normal course of making changes to bylaws, local governments must not make changes to bylaws without holding a public hearing – Section 464(1) of the Local Government Act.
However, a new clause has been added:
Section 464(4) – A local government must not hold a public hearing on a zoning bylaw proposed for the sole purpose of complying with Section 481.3 [zoning bylaws and small-scale multi-family housing].
Council agreed that the city should stick to the bare minimum, make changes to allow the four suites and increase the maximum building height to 11m, but otherwise keeping setbacks, amenities, fencing requirements, owner-occupation requirements, parking, lot coverage and development permit requirements the same as they are currently.
The planning department will now prepare the zoning amendments, to be ready for First and Second Reading on June 10, with Third Reading and Adoption on June 24, in time to meet the province’s June 30 deadline, before sending the amendments to the Housing Minister.