Approximately 900 properties in Duncan, mainly in the Cairnsmore Road and Marchmont Road neighbourhoods, will be permitted to have the number of housing units on them significantly increased.
City zoning was restricted to single-unit and two-unit, or duplex, dwellings, on these low-density residential properties, but the province made mandatory legislative changes in December in an effort to produce more housing in British Columbia at an accelerated pace to deal with the ongoing housing crisis.
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Kyle Young, Duncan’s director of planning and sustainability, told council at its meeting on May 21 that the new legislation will permit at least four dwellings on properties within these low-density zones, meaning there’s a potential of 3,600 new housing units that could be constructed in the city.
Development of these housing units may occur in a variety of different ways within an existing building and on a lot, and adding secondary suites and/or accessory detached units will create a variety of housing and layout options, according to the new legislation.
Young said the legislative amendments require changes to the way the city processes housing development applications, and the city will also need to update its zoning bylaw by June 30 to permit small-scale multi-unit housing in these zones.
The city adopted the zoning changes at its meeting on June 3.
“The (province) recommends more flexible regulations, including reduced parking requirements, smaller setbacks, and increased building height and parcel coverage,” Young said.
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Young said the province is prohibiting local governments from holding public hearings on these zoning changes to comply with the new legislation to streamline the process, but the city did hold two in-person drop-in sessions for people to view the development scenarios and zoning provisions and ask questions of planning staff, which were attended by a total 12 people, and no written feedback was received.
Coun. Garry Bruce said he’s okay with most of what the new legislation is mandating, but he’s concerned about parking in the impacted neighbourhoods.
He said he’s worried that people will be parking on the streets.
“If you go to certain areas of Vancouver and Victoria, you can see that the results are when there’s no parking provided,” Bruce said.
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“I don’t think we should be pulling back on parking requirements because everybody has cars, and some people have two. I would hate to see us load up our streets with just residential parking.”
Young pointed out that if the city chose to limit parking in these areas, it might be considered by the province as unreasonably restricting the density that’s permitted under the new legislation, and that’s not permitted.
He said the province is recommending that the city establish a maximum of one parking space per housing unit in the impacted neighbourhoods.
“(Staff) feel that providing at least one full-sized parking space per dwelling is the absolute minimum that’s needed,” Young said.
“I agree that we don’t want to be in a scenario where our streets are being crowded with residential parking.”
