District staff is proposing zoning bylaw amendments that could impact Squamish residents.
Proposed updates would allow more food trucks and other mobile commercial vendors around the community; allow small child-care facilities in townhouses and apartments; allow for recreational storage facilities in non-residential zones; eliminate minimum building widths and dwelling unit size regulation; allow a 1.5-metre height increase to buildings in areas where construction must accommodate high flood levels and allow for more options for how floor space below the flood level can be used.
“The interesting part is the zone construction level,” said Jonas Velaniskis, the district’s director of development services. “Right now you can only have a garage and entrance foyer underneath the flood construction level… but people, we know, are putting in fake ceilings, putting walls up after the building inspectors leave because it is a lot of space that people would like to utilize with some kind of storage, so that is the kind of thing we are going to say OK, let’s allow for some storage because it is happening anyway.”
A community’s zoning says a lot about its cultural norms and shifts.
Many Squamish residents, for example, want more storage for their recreational equipment, which is something that wasn’t seen so predominantly in the community in the past and reflects Squamish’s many recreational pursuits, according to Velaniskis.
The last zoning bylaw update was in 2014.
“It is almost like an annual thing we should be doing as the community’s needs are changing,” he said.
“It is a way to keep up with things people in Squamish are already doing anyway and reflect that in the city’s bylaw.”
The proposal to eliminate minimum building widths and minimum dwelling unit size regulations will pave the way for tiny homes and reflects the desire for more housing options. “It is kind of ridiculous that we still have these minimum sizes for buildings,” he said.
Amy Montgomery, who has lived in Squamish for eight years, was at the district open house at Brennan Park Recreation Centre on Dec. 10, perusing the poster boards and adding comments on a few boards.
She said she especially liked the expansion to allow food trucks and other mobile commercial enterprises in more areas of the community.
That proposal sparked an entrepreneurial idea, she said, but she didn’t want to share it.
“I think they are all great ideas,” she said.
The public comments will be shared in a presentation to council early in the new year, according to district staff.
