The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) is updating the zoning bylaws. The Official Community Plan (OCP) was updated over 10 years ago. Typically, after an OCP is updated, the zoning bylaws are updated as well. We are about a decade behind in updating the zoning bylaws, which govern what can be built on Cortes. The SRD staff recently presented their current directions at a community meeting.
The CHS commends the SRD for identifying additional opportunities to provide housing and suggests the following changes:
To achieve these objects, I request the following key 5 changes:
- Larger Cottages
- Allow the cottage to be larger: (current size of 650 sq ft. is too small for a family)
- Provide an option for more than one cottage
- Allow more houses on existing properties:
- Upzone Rural Residential (1.5 dwellings per 5 acres) to Residential (1.5 dwellings per 2.5 acres)
- Upzone Rural (1.5 dwellings per 9.98 acres) to Rural Residential (1.5 dwellings per 5 acres)
- Explore increasing the maximum number of houses in Rural Residential and Residential zones (currently limited to 3.5 units no matter the size of the lot)
- Affordable Housing:
- Make it easier to add more density to the Rainbow Ridge land in the years to come.
- Make conversions to hotels:
- Stop homes from being converted into hotels by regulating short term rentals.
- Cluster housing:
- The zoning bylaws should be written to support more clustering of housing.