The Province of BC has enacted new legislation called the Housing Statutes (Residential Development) Amendment Act, 2023 (Bill 44) as part of its Homes for People Action Plan to address the housing crisis across the Province.
As part of this new legislation, there are new requirements for local governments with regard to small scale residential housing. In addition, local government are required to adopt zoning bylaws by June 30 that align with the new provincial legislation.
In municipalities there are “one” of everything (one service boundary, one water system, one sewer system, etc). This is a good example of how different regional districts are different than municipalities and how the impacts of some of these legislative changes are more complex.
There are eight RDEK zoning & floodplain management bylaws that are affected by these new provincial requirements. While the changes are the same for each bylaw, the sections or zones in each bylaw are impacted differently based on the current definitions, permitted uses and zoning regulations in each bylaw. One of the impacts of the changes will relate to secondary suites.
To meet the Provincial requirements, the RDEK will be taking eight bylaw amendments to the Board of Directors for consideration in May.
To help residents learn about how the proposed changes may impact them, and be able to provide comment prior to the bylaws going to board, he RDEK has created a new project page: https://engage.rdek.bc.ca/housingchanges.
On the main project page, you will find links to each of the bylaws and when you click on that link, it will take you to a page that will summarize the changes for that specific bylaw and has a link to the new draft.
If you are unsure whether your property is affected or what Zoning Bylaw you might be under, here are some quick steps to help you find out:
• Click here to go to the RDEK public web map
• Zoom in to find your property. If you want to see a different view, click on the icon that has four squares and find the option that works best for you.
• Click on your property and a little window will pop up
• That window will show the civic address and in the top black bar, you may notice numbers, such as (1 of 3). If you don’t see details like your PID, Zoning, OCP Bylaw on the first screen that pops up, click the little arrow in the top black bar until you get to the page with that information. There will be a line item called Zoning Bylaw and that will give you the name of the Zoning Bylaw covering your property.
It is important to read the changes for the Zoning Bylaw you are commenting on prior to submitting comments as they will all be impacted slightly differently.
Comments are being accepted until 4:30pm on May 6.
If you have questions about the new legislation or how these changes may impact your property, the best contact is Karen MacLeod. She can be reached at kmacleod@rdek.bc.ca.
