A property owner in east Richmond wants to rezone the back end of their residential lot.
But city staff are recommending council deny the application as it doesn’t comply with the city’s trail strategy nor with the Official Community Plan.
The northern portion of 11111 Bird Rd., in the Shell and Bridgeport area, is designated “park” although its current zoning is “school/institutional.” This portion of the split-zoned lot is also a BC Hydro right-of-way.
The southern portion has a single-family home.
The city has received an application to rezone the northern portion of the lot — a 100-foot swath — to "small-scale multi-unit housing." This is a new type of zoning that came into effect last summer after provincial legislation required municipalities to allow densification on single-family lots.
This new zoning, however, only applies to the southern section of the property where the house is currently located.
The property owner wants to rezone the northern portion of the property which would allow an additional 4,700 square feet of residential development on the property.
However, because no homes could be built on the BC Hydro right-of-way, this density would be added to the southern portion of the property where the house currently is situated.
No development proposal has been submitted for the property, city staff said in a report to council, therefore, they cannot assess the impact of allowing this increased density.
This rezoning is coming forward for “refinancing purposes,” the report reads.
The city has been acquiring land behind homes to the east of this Bird Road property to create a trail network.
“It is the city’s intention to continue to acquire lands as they become available in this area in order to complete the public park and trail network,” the report noted.
It’s also intended as a buffer between the homes and industrial businesses to the north.
The owner and city staff tried for several years to work out a deal to allow more density on the lot in exchange for integrating the back end of the property into the trail system. This was eventually shelved in 2014.
The owner of the single-family home was taken to court by the City of Richmond for several bylaw violations in 1996, 2000 and 2019.
This was for building extra suites and adding onto the building beyond the “permitted buildable area” as well as other “unpermitted construction,” according to the city staff report. Currently, all non-compliance issues have been resolved, the report added.
City staff recommend denying the rezoning application as it doesn’t comply with the city’s Official Community Plan and is “inconsistent” with the city’s trail strategy.
The application will be dealt with at next Wednesday's city council planning meeting.
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