Photo by Curtis Galbraith

By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

Final approval of secondary suite bylaw changes put off for two weeks

Jun 4, 2024 | 6:00 AM

Grande Prairie City Council has put off final approval to bylaw changes to secondary suites after a nearly four hour long discussion at Monday’s meeting.

Council decided against having third reading, so this will be back before council in two weeks.

Mayor Jackie Clayton says industry and residents have looked at these as “a relatively quick fix for our needs in rentals.”

“We know that we’ve had significant numbers of Ukrainians move to the community, for example, and they may not be in a position to be able to buy a house.”

“We do know that, through Invest GP and advocacy efforts that we’ve been working on, that multi-family, in a sense of large apartment building, isn’t coming to the city right now.”

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Council did approve one amendment. This will now require at least one parking stall for a one bedroom suite where the previous idea was to not require any parking.

Council discussed, but ultimately defeated, motions to remove allowing suites in semi-detached dwellings from the proposed changes and allowing five suites in a 30 metre radius of the subject property. That proposed update will stay at eight suites in a 30 metre radius.

More than two dozen people attended the hearing, some of whom spoke both for and against the proposed changes.

Clayton says not everyone can afford to install a suite and not everyone wants renters in their house.

“You won’t get to the numbers that some of the residents were concerned about. There’s things such as the fact that there can’t be more than two secondary suites side by side. There are limitations and expectations on parking.”

“That was the number one issue that we heard in our engagement was concerns about parking.”

Clayton thinks the change to require a parking spot for a one bedroom suite will limit areas where secondary suites can be added.

“Because there may not be the possibility to add that one additional stall. We’ve heard about parking and it’s really something hard to monitor.”

“People obviously prefer to park in their driveway. That’s not always possible if you are a family with teenage children that are driving (or) maybe you have an in law living with you.”

The people that spoke to council also had worries like impact on schools and infrastructure and how the new bylaw might lead to changes and redevelopment in neighbourhoods.

Those in favour say this would solve problems of having affordable housing available and more income from a suite would allow seniors to stay in their homes longer.

Council also asked for more information from administration on going from garage suites in the yard, where a garage is required, to backyard suites, where there is no garage required.

Changes to the bylaw that would remove size restrictions for suites and to remove lot width requirements were not changed.