IT may not have been the most exciting meeting ever held in city chambers, but last night’s regular council meeting offered a glimpse of the types of housing projects Terrace residents can expect to see more of as area development continues to pick up and property owners look to capitalize on the need for more housing units.
A number of bylaws saw first and second reading, with the majority dealing with requests for zoning changes which will allow more multi-residential units to be built.
In the horseshoe neighbourhood, Stan Kinkead, who earlier this year was successful in receiving a rezoning of property for a multi-family townhouse development of up to nine units on the bench, plans to turn a single family home at 4917 Lazelle Ave. – the property beside the Masonic Hall near the United Church – into a three-unit housing complex. The necessary zoning changes and amendments to the official community plan passed first and second reading.
Travelling up to the bench at 5350 Mountain Vista Dr., just off the Nisga’a Hwy, MCF Enterprises Ltd is looking to develop its property, but first steps include discharging the lot from the provincially-legislated land use contract. These locked-in contracts were issued in the 1970s and detail land use and development. They currently supersede subsequent land use bylaws, but are being phased out over the next decade.
The city’s policy regarding land use contracts has always been to zone land use contract lands within the city as the corresponding appropriate zoning, explained director of development services David Block.
“So in this case, the portions of the property are zoned R5, high density multi-family residential and R2 (single-family residential),” he continued, before the amendment to the land use contract passed first and second reading by council.
And on the bench at 4934 Twedle Ave., following an application from property owner Colleen Frose, with a bylaw amendment passing first and second reading, plans are in motion to change the zoning from R1 family residential to R3 low-density multi-residential to allow residential townhouses or duplexes to be built on the property, which includes a small subdivision.
