Rental housing construction is on the upswing in Kelowna.
(JOHN MCDONALD / iNFOnews.ca)
July 23, 2016 - 9:30 AM
KELOWNA - A pair of rental apartments with 119 units proposed for Kane Road in Glenmore will help alleviate Kelowna’s apartment vacancy rate of less than one per cent.
That’s one of the rationales planning staff have given for support of the rezoning application and the variances the developer requested, including an extra storey from four to five and a decrease in the number of parking stalls from 184 to 153.
“Increasing the rental supply will benefit the the Kelowna housing market,” staff planner Adam Cseke says.
Owners Terrance and Joan Raisanen are asking it be rezoned for medium density housing, a future use already supported by the city’s official community plan. The property is currently vacant and zoned for agricultural use.
It lies within the Glenmore village centre, which Cseke notes in a report to council, is well supported by nearby parks, outdoor amenities and transit routes.
Once John Hindle Drive is complete, Ceske points out, the site will be on a direct route to UBC Okanagan.
Plans are for 119 rental units oriented to both Kane Road and Valley Road, with one to three bedrooms, which Cseke says qualifies the developers for a municipal tax exemption.
Kelowna council has been struggling in the last few years to stimulate construction of new rental housing, with the vacancy rate currently sitting at 0.7 per cent. The city offers an array of incentives from tax exemptions to outright grants-per-unit.
However, it wasn’t until 2015 the goal of approving the construction of 300 rental units each year was met.
A number of rental housing developments are going through the application process this year but how many will actually proceed and when the units become available is unknown.
Find more Kelowna rental housing stories here.
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