The need for rental properties in Salmon Arm may be offset by a surge in applications to the city related to the construction of legal secondary suites.
Salmon Arm development services director Kevin Pearson says 16 applications related to secondary suites have come to the city so far this year – eight have been adopted and the other eight are under review.
The odds that the city will approve those remaining eight are good. Last year, the city received 11 applications – all were approved by council. The same number was received in 2014. Two were withdrawn and the others approved. Five were received in 2013, the year council approved the creation of bylaws to accommodate the construction of coach houses. All of those were adopted too.
Twelve of those 43 applications were for detached suites.
Pearson says the city’s official community plan speaks favourably to the construction of secondary detached suites, permitted in an R8-single family/secondary residential suite zone.
“It’s a broad policy and it’s very encouraging of mostly secondary suites and detaches suites on appropriately sized parcels, pretty much in all residential neighbourhoods,” said Pearson. “It’s very ubiquitous and sometimes that can be a point of contention with some specific neighbourhoods, but overall I would say the neighbourhood acceptance of suites, especially if done legally and with proper zoning, is fairly positive. We don’t get a lot of people protesting.”
Since he was first elected, Coun. Chad Eliason has been and advocate for secondary suites and carriage houses. He said the city had, and has, ample properties that maybe aren’t large enough to subdivide but could accommodate a secondary suite.
“It was a way for us to solve a few problems,” said Eliason. “One, affordable rental housing, because we can’t demand people build what they build. It was an easy option for us to make these things legal and provide more affordable rental accommodation in the community. And that’s what this upswing has brought. There’s a demand for rental and people are filling that demand.”
Secondary suites also provide an opportunity for the city’s older population to supplement their income, and younger home owners a way to help with mortgage payments.
“And so, it increases the people being able to stay on their land and in their house. It’s an investment for retirement, it might be a place where they live in the future and the kids move into their house, because often kids are moving home to live with parents. So it solves quite a few things for us,” said Eliason, noting secondary suites are a way the city can increase density without increasing density.
“It suits what our market is looking for,” he said.
Information on secondary suites can be found on the city’s website at www.salmonarm.ca.
Eliason says staff in the development and planning department are also great for walking people through the process of establishing a legal secondary suite.