â–ş Listen Live
â–ş Listen Live

Nelson turns down home to laneway house conversion

Nelson City Council won’t allow a homeowner to change their existing house into a laneway house to allow for a future duplex.

The home at 1117 McQuarrie Avenue meets all the criteria for a laneway house except it’s 0.9 meters (3 feet) too tall.

Council had to decide Tuesday night whether to allow a height variance to allow the house to be considered a laneway house, allowing for future construction of a 960 square foot duplex at the front of the lot.

The debate opened a larger discussion on whether property owners could flip their homes to secondary suites to allow second structures on large lots.

In the end, a majority of council rejected the proposal. Even though Nelson is seeing higher density builds and infilling with secondary suites, a majority of city councillors had concern this house-to-laneway house re-designation would open the floodgates.

“That looks like an awfully big laneway house to me,” Coun. Cal Renwick remarked. Diagrams show the house is about 100 square feet smaller than the maximum building footprint for a laneway house.

Coun. Janice Morrison was steadfastly against the idea. “We need to give this kind of development more thought because I actually think we would see a lot more of this. You don’t have to too many places in Nelson to see small houses on big tracts of land. Once one of these goes through, we will see more of them.”

Coun. Jesse Woodward seemed to support the idea. “As we know, it’s such a struggle now to find land so I feel like this kind of densification is one of the answers to that,” he said.

Mayor John Dooley noted that the property owner does have other options such as subdividing the 50 by 170 foot lot to allow another building.

Planner Matt Kuziak told council the city had received a “package” of last minute comments from the public, but more of the feedback was about the existing home and not a secondary build.

Continue Reading

chnv Now playing play

ckkc Now playing play

- Advertisement -

Related Articles

- Advertisement -

Latest News

Friends of Kootenay Lake Stewards host fall events at Harrop Wetland and annual Kootenay Lake Summit

Friends of Kootenay Lake Stewardship Society is inviting community members to participate in a series of hands-on events this fall at the Harrop Wetland and to join the upcoming Kootenay Lake Summit.

Former Nelson public works director, councillor Bob Adams dies at 82

After 26 years looking after the city's infrastructure, Adams served four terms on city council.

Infrastructure, housing, UNDRIP will top agenda as local governments meet in Victoria next week

Members of local governments and First Nations are gathering in Victoria next week for the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) convention.

B.C. Conservatives support federal bill to classify intimate partner killings as first-degree murder

B.C. politicians are voicing support for a federal Conservative bill that would classify the killing of an intimate partner as first-degree murder. 

Whitewater eyes funding to pave access road

Whitewater Ski Resort is asking the Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) to back its bid to pave a six-kilometre stretch of the Whitewater Access Road.
- Advertisement -