District of North Vancouver staff are proposing amendments to simplify coach house regulations. The amendments were discussed at a council meeting in December 2024 and will come up for third reading at a council meeting today, January 27.
In December, the council resolved not to hold a public hearing and directly issue a public notice outlining the change.
The changes aim to improve the coach house approval process and make it clearer and more consistent. The district plans to standardize the private outdoor patio, deck, and veranda sizes. It will adopt a consistent size of 4.6 square meters (50 square feet) for such spaces, eliminating discrepancies in current regulations.
The district also seeks to remove minimum size requirements for living rooms and bedrooms. The district doesn’t regulate room size in other residential buildings, which will help simplify the plan. This will expedite applications and provide greater flexibility in home design.
There are also plans to introduce more flexibility by allowing two access points from the front or rear driveway when a coach house is constructed. The earlier rule permitted one driveway per road frontage per lot.
The new rules would allow flexibility to permit two access points when a coach house is built. However, lane should be suitable to provide vehicle access and the frontage improvements are designed and constructed to the District’s engineering standards.
Changes to the bylaw also aim to delegate variances such as siting, size, lot coverage, and height, to staff.
We own a small house 1800 ft. sq. on a large corner lot (8000 ft. sq.)in the District. We would love to build an additional one level home off the lane to rent to our son and his wife and twin baby daughters. The current restrictions allow only 968 sq. ft. for a carriage house but for us to accommodate a small family it is simply not adequate. Will I be able to apply for a variance to allow a slightly larger building so this family won’t have to move away. There is plenty of room on the lot and the neighbor’s are on board with this. People would rather see one extra low level building than a fourplex. Maybe with the new density changes coming there will be some consideration for this. It seems there is lots of talk about the numbers of housing units but I have heard nothing about the allowable size of these homes.