John Jensen

I thought I would post a quick note about the proposal for coach / laneway houses in the City. The public consultation process is drawing to a close, with the final public hearing scheduled for tomorrow. I would feel much better about it, however, if the process were to be implemented in a similar way as the City of Vancouver in terms of mandatory reporting and followup. That is, staff to report to Council every 6 months or when 100 laneway houses have been built, whichever comes first. The March 2010 report is available at the City of Vancouver's website. It notes that while activity is increasing, only 33 permits have been issued since July 2009 with another 34 in process. 73% of them are 1.5 stories in height and are on average 550 square feet. Laneway housing, if widely implemented, will be a significant change to the City's single-family neighbourhoods, and while consensus seems to be forming around something similar to the current proposal, it is still very controversial. There is a chance here that development could go in ways that are unintended -- if no one applies to build one, or if 90% of homeowners do, there is probably something wrong with the policy. I would therefore recommend that council institute a similar monitoring policy as Vancouver. Vancouver has about 14 times the number of single-family homes than the City of North Vancouver, so I would suggest an update once per year and a full report after 10 permits are issued.