This is a conceptual drawing of what could be built on a piece of land being rezoned in Kelowna without any public input.
Image Credit: Submitted/City of Kelowna
January 09, 2022 - 8:36 AM
Rezoning a large parcel of land in Kelowna’s North End to allow for rental apartments up to four storeys high is headed for approval on Monday without any public input.
It’s a real world example of what can happen throughout B.C. now that new rules are in place that make formal public hearings optional for many rezoning applications.
And this one couldn’t have happened faster, coming just over seven weeks after the new rules received Royal Assent on Nov. 25.
On Dec. 6, Kelowna city council agreed to a staff recommendation to waive the public hearing for the rezoning application to accommodate phase two of the Pleasantville Apartments at 651 Cambridge Ave., near the foot of Knox Mountain.
On Monday, Jan. 10, council is set to give three readings to the rezoning bylaw, which gives it final approval.
The report to council in December did not outline how many units might be built but did show two conceptual drawings. One shows a four-storey apartment building and the other a set of two-storey row houses.
This is another conceptual drawing of what could be built.
Image Credit: Submitted/City of Kelowna
Other than the existing 47-unit Pleasantville complex, most of the surrounding properties have small single-family lots with homes built after the Second World War.
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Under the new rules, no public hearing is needed for a rezoning if it follows a municipality’s Official Community Plan and has staff’s blessing. Council can overrule the staff recommendation and call a public hearing if the application seems to warrant more public input, especially if there is public opposition.
A city still has to post a sign on the property, take out a newspaper ad and notify nearby property owners. In Kelowna’s case, that’s within 50 metres so, while a house across the street might get a notice in the mail, one a few doors further along may not.
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There was no correspondence received by the city during the notification period for this application, which included the Christmas break.
It could well be that the neighbourhood welcomes an expansion to Pleasantville.
It was built in 2016 with support from B.C. Housing and provides 50 affordable townhouses for families and seniors. It replaced a senior’s complex built in the 1950s.
It was approved after an extensive public consultation process, according to a B.C. Housing web page.
Kelowna city council will hold a separate meeting on Monday where the new rules about public hearings will be discussed.
A report going to that meetings points out that, during COVID-19, public hearings could be waived if it was felt there was little interest in a particular application. The new rules mean no public hearings for qualified applications is the default position.
During 2021, the report says there were 81 public hearings and people wrote in to the city on 51% of those applications.
There were 48 applications where the public hearings were waived and there was correspondence on 27% of those.
Three applications were sent to public hearing after the hearings had initially been waived.
The report does not say how many people attended or spoke at the public hearings that were held or how much of the correspondence came from those within 50 metres of the application site.
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