November 24th SSMUH public hearing
Hello everyone. This week there’s going to be two separate Eyes on Council posts this week. This first post is going to talk about the public hearing on November 24th. This hearing was for the amendments to the small scale multiunit housing zoning bylaw. As a recap, at previous council meetings there were changes made to the amount of the lot that can be built on, depending on the number of units being constructed on the lot. There were also new height restrictions both in terms of total storeys of the property, and the measured height from the lowest point of the ground level up to the roof.
In the previous hearing about the zoning bylaw, members of the public were simply commenting on the proposed bylaw itself. This week’s meeting was about the proposed changes to the bylaws, and this meeting had more people attend than the previous meeting. City staff announced that there were over 150 different submissions on the topic of the hearing, and that there were four separate petitions with 1066, 256, 196 and 221 signatures respectively.
Speakers at the public hearing mainly fell into three different groups; those who opposed the amendment because they opposed small scale multi-unit housing in general, those who opposed the amendment because it reduced the buildable area on each lot, and those who were broadly supportive of the amendment lowering the amount of buildable space on the property. By far, the most numerous were those who opposed the amendment, and between them there were more of those who did not want any density as opposed to those who wanted more density. With that being said, there was a much more concerted effort by people who wanted increased density to show up and present, either in person or zoom or through the public submission process.
Overall opponents of the SSMUH process are generally opposed for two reasons. The first is process based, where opponents feel that the bylaw was brought it too quickly and there wasn’t enough time for residents to have their say about the bylaw. Tied into those concerns is the fact that Burnaby had an extensive housing consultation period after the 2022 municipal election, and the city had already been going through the process of updating its official community plan when provincial legislation required upzoning for SSMUH throughout the city. Substantive concerns revolved around concerns about changing neighbourhood character, reductions in privacy from having increased density in single family neighbourhoods, and a concern that the buildings being constructed are not aesthetically in line with the rest of the neighbourhood. The aesthetic concerns also include concerns about height and setback differentials between the new buildings and those that were constructed under the previous zoning bylaws.
An unfortunate thing to note was that many of those who came to the meeting were opposed to the original zoning bylaw and demanded reductions in density in order to meet their needs. Now that council has done so by reducing the buildable area and reducing height restrictions, many of those same people came back to council to say that they were not satisfied with the changes and demanded even further reductions in density and buildable area. Specific concerns were that duplexes would be considered too much density, and that a proposed two storey laneway house was considered a monster house in the speaker’s single family neighbourhood. While I have no doubt that many of the opponents of SSMUH are sincere in their concerns, it is also becoming clear that several opponents simply oppose any density at all.
Opponents who wanted to revert to the original bylaw commonly stated that it was unfair that rezoning applications were made under the original height and lot restriction requirements, and that those were now no longer available to the development proponents. Many indicated that their developments would not be financially viable if the amendments were adopted, and that doing so would inevitably reduce the amount of newly constructed homes that would be created under the zoning bylaw. Others noted that the original limitations would allow for increased density, which should have the effect of decreasing home prices over time as supply and demand rebalance themselves. Many of those who supported the amendment noted that it was a compromise between the original bylaw and the demands to not do any increased density anywhere.
The public hearing finished after just under five and a half hours, with council likely to vote on the amendment sometime in the near future.
