The City of Delta is making a further push to add more secondary suites.
Council last week approved several bylaw amendments aimed at removing barriers for owners leasing or renting a secondary suite.
The changes include eliminating suite rental permits, rental permit licence fees and penalties, while granting authority to the general manager of development to issue and/or revoke suite occupancy permits and approve suite decommissioning work.
The fees and penalties equate to approximately $140,000 in annual revenue for the city that would be made up through other efficiencies, a report to council notes.
New legislation will require municipalities to update their bylaws for all residential single-detached zoned lots to allow a minimum of one secondary suite and/or one accessory dwelling unit.
There are approximately 3,700 secondary suites in Delta that have an occupancy permit, with about 2,700 having rental permits, according to the report.
Home Suite Home
As a further measure, and in response to a mandated housing target given to Delta by the province, the city is also launching what it calls the Home Suite Home program to encourage homeowners to add a secondary suite to their existing homes.
The program includes a limited-time offer for the waiver of building permit application fees, as well as a free pre-application process with the option of having a city “Secondary Suite Ambassador” attend a secondary suite before the permitting process begins.
The intent of the service is to help homeowners better understand the process in achieving an approved suite, the report explains, adding the estimated savings to the property owner is approximately $400 to add a unit to their existing homes.
The usual rules will still apply including that a secondary suite cannot be strata-titled or sold. Only one secondary suite is permitted by the BC Building Code in a single-detached dwelling. A duplex may have two suites, however only one suite is allowed per side and must be in the lower part of the duplex.
During a staff presentation on the proposed update for the Official Community Plan (OCP), it was noted one of the recommended action items for the city to undertake is lobbying the province to change the Building Code to allow more than one secondary suite per single-detached dwelling.
Delta over the past few years has already been making several zoning and OCP changes to facilitate more units, one of the strategies outlined within the city’s Housing Action Plan.
Four years ago, council approved eliminating the requirement for a minimum lot width of 49-feet (15 metres) for a house to be eligible for a suite and allowing suites on properties that can fit three on-site parking spaces regardless of parking configuration.
Council last year also approved an amendment that would allow the addition of secondary suites in duplexes, following changes in the BC Building Code.
Last year, council also approved a planning department recommendation to remove the minimum 33-square-metre floor area requirement for a secondary suite as well as removing the maximum 90-square-metres for a suite.
Meanwhile, this summer all land use contracts in Delta will be terminated, revealing homes’ underlying zoning which permit secondary suites.
Mostly created in the early 1970s, thousands of land use contracts were signed at the time of a property’s original subdivision, but those old land use contracts did not permit secondary suites.
Council for several has been discharging land use contracts on an application-by-application basis for homeowners wanting to add suites.
