Public Hearing

Good evening, View Royal.

I'll call the uh public hearing for June 18th, 2024, to order and begin with a territorial acknowledgement that we recognize the Lekwungen speaking people known today as the Esquimalt Nation and the Songhees Nation, and that their historic connections to these lands continue to this day.

The proposed bylaw has been introduced and has received second reading of council.

Before the bylaw can be legally adopted by council, it must receive two more readings.

Your input via the public hearing process is most important to council in making a decision.

At this public person hearing, uh, any person who believes that their interest in property is affected by the proposed bylaw amendment shall be given an opportunity to be heard.

However, it is important that all who speak at this meeting restrict their remarks to matters contained in the bylaw, and is my responsibility to ensure that all remarks are so restricted.

This evening we'll hear uh a presentation from staff and the applicant.

Uh, then we will hear from the public during the comments from the public portion of the agenda.

At that time, if you wish to provide comments by telephone, you can call 778-402-9227.

And when prompted, enter conference ID 244-845-647-pound.

I will then announce the last four digits of your phone number.

Ask you to mute your live uh cast to avoid feedback.

Ask you not to use your speaker phone to ensure sound quality, and ask that uh at the appropriate time that you unmute yourself by pressing star six to begin please indicate the name and the street name for the record you may then give us the benefit of your views members of council may if they so wish ask questions of you however the main function of council members this evening is to listen to the views of the public it is not the function of council at this public hearing to debate the merits of the proposed by law amendment with individual citizens during the course of the public hearing people sometimes tend to be too enthusiastic or emotional regardless of how you're you favor or oppose any particular application or argument, please keep your phone on mute so uh everyone may clearly hear the person who's on the floor.

Like all public hearings, this meeting will be recorded to aid in the accuracy of minute taking.

And by participating in this webcast, you're consenting to being recorded, and the recording uh will be available on the town's website for future access.

After this public hearing is concluded, the council may, without further notice, give whatever effect council believes proper to the representation made at this public hearing.

Public is reminded that after the public hearing, council can't cannot hear any new information until a decision about the application is made.

I think there's one more seat up here if you would like.

Second.

May I have a mover and a seconder for approval of the agenda, please?

Moved by Councillor Brown, seconded by Councillor Lemon.

All those in favor?

Any opposed?

Seeing none opposed, then Councillor Qualitic, I'll I'll take your silence as as affirmative.

Yes.

And I think I've read the statement of uh public hearing procedure.

I think it's time for uh to hear from the senior planner for the statement of publication thank you Mayor Tobias uh yeah i'll i'll read through the uh the public hearing notice of advertising so first off the notice that uh the notice that advertises public hearing was posted on the notice board at the municipal office on the 5th of june 2024 uh that's the uh public notice board out out front the notice has uh uh has been advertised uh on the town's website on the 5th of June the notice was also published on the town's social media sites, including Facebook and X, formerly Twitter uh on the 5th of June.

And then finally, the avert uh there was an advertisement placed in the Gold Stream Gazette on the 12th of June.

Thank you, uh Sterling.

Thank you.

And I think we can probably go right down to staff reports unless I'm missing something, Sarah.

So we'll go to 4.1 and uh invite you for the staff report.

Sorry, Mayor Tobias, I uh forgot the number of my presentation, so I'll uh I'll get into it.

So the purpose of the presentation is just a bit of a recap on what staff uh have been working on.

Uh this is a proposed amendment to the official community plan and includes uh amendments to the development permit areas map, schedule P, and then also introduction of a new development permit area, uh intensive uh intensive residential uh for garden suite uh garden suite units.

This map on screen shows the existing Schedule P form and character development permit areas map.

This is a map within our official community plan.

This is from the 2011 OCP, and the intent of this map is to provide uh direction for members of staff, uh council, and the public with respect to development in the community.

Where there's uh color shown on the map, that's correspondence to one of the four form and character development permit areas in the community, and those are commercial intensive mixed use, neighborhood mixed use, and mixed residential.

Is part of the SSMUH updates that have been taking place.

That's the small scale multi unit residential house or small scale multi unit housing through the legislation passed through the province.

This is to uh allow uh council and staff to review applications that take place uh in these areas, uh the SMA SMA applicable areas that would uh they would require a development permit for a uh uh multifamily unit or a duplex uh attached uh townhouse, townhouse, whereas previously they would not.

Um it would go an application would uh go straight to building permit.

Um the proposed amendment is informed by feedback from uh the standing committee on housing and from uh members of council uh wishing to see a greater opportunity for a review of these uh these developments as they come forward, which would be handled through that uh development permit process.

The second amendment that has uh is proposed is a new uh development permit area, and uh it'll be called development permit area intensive residential garden suite.

This is strictly for the uh the permission of garden suites and regulates them through design guidelines, much like the other design uh guidelines that are in our form and character development permit areas.

This is strictly a form and character development development permit.

So things that would be considered would be uh the site design, the building design, uh landscaping, and other accessory uh considerations uh in in terms of accessible uh accessibility and parking access uh with waste and compost.

There is not any change to the map because the location where this would be permitted would be uh limited to those uh restricted zones in the uh in the uh uh town that were identified through SPA.

And just as a kind of a point of clarity, staff have prepared a map showing which those what properties that uh that would be.

So those areas shown in purple would be those properties subject to uh potentially uh permitting a garden suite.

Uh the reason I say potentially is that they would still be subject to the regulations in the zoning bylaw so things like setbacks height and uh there may need be there may need to be a a variance which uh may or may not uh uh be approved by council um and there's many other considerations that staff would have to can you know review when these these these permits come in uh with respect to how they uh how they uh are applicable to or how they apply to the um the design guidelines which are reviewed at a case by case basis.

That's the uh conclusion of the presentation.

Just a quick recap for for counsel um for the uh the public hearing.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Stringley.

Before i go to my colleagues for questions, just for clarification, because probably the the public is nowhere.

So if I wanted if I owned a home right now in in View Royal and would it wanted to put in a garden suite, I wouldn't have to rezone it.

Uh the there would be no public hearing.

I can put my a garden suite in my backyard, given uh all things considered that it would fit there, correct?

That's correct.

If if council adopts the uh the SMA uh amendments to the zoning bylaw, uh the there would be no building or there would be no development permit, it would go straight to building permit.

And uh with this bylaw, depending on where in View Royal I live, i.e., closer to transit population or or transit hubs, I can build up to four or six units given um the lots in those areas without rezoning, correct?

That's correct, Mayor Tobias.

Under the uh the SMA uh legislation that was passed, four units is uh applicable to all restricted zones, and up to six units uh is applicable to those properties located within uh 400 meters of a prescribed transit stop.

Thank you, Sterling.

And last question is if I was really rich and just wanted to come in and build a house on one of those lots that have been identified, I could also do that correctly.

That is correct, Mayor Tobias.

There's nothing stopping uh somebody that owns a single family uh brought property that's zoned for single family use.

Uh, there's nothing stopping them from building uh just a single family home.

Thank you, Sterling.

Council Rogers.

Uh any questions from a colleagues on the staff presentation?

Uh along the same line as the uh the mayor.

Um and I I also understand that um a property owner who doesn't live on that property could have a secondary suite, uh, rent out the house as well as uh construct and rent a garden suite.

Is that correct?

There is an opportunity for a homeowner to have a secondary suite and for them to have a garden suite.

But uh the individual the individual is a homeowner, but he doesn't have to live there in order to uh have that secondary suite or that garden suite.

Is that correct?

Uh through the mayor, uh that's correct.

Um the principal dwelling does not have to be owner occupied in order to have a secondary suite and a garden suite on the site.

Okay, thank you.

Um and I noted in correspondence Mr.

Lloyd had a uh question.

Um I wonder if we could also answer that for him.

I don't know if he's here right now.

Um through the mayor, um, the piece of correspondence that's later on the agenda.

I'm not quite sure if it's pertains to this particular item, but um I can answer the question now.

Uh his question is related to zoning regulations.

So building footprint and the book building footprint of a garden suite is regulated through the zoning bylaw.

The proposed amendments that you we are presenting tonight as part of the public hearing has to do with introducing development permit area for a garden suite so we have control over the form and character, so the design of the garden suite, how a garden suite is sited on on a property, the height, the site coverage, setbacks, that's all zoning bylaw.

And council will be considering that bylaw later on in this agenda, in the council agenda.

Thanks for the question.

Uh, Councilor Rogers.

Yeah, just pertaining to the uh OCP amendment for this part of it.

Counselor Mattson, yeah, uh it was a follow-up to Councilor Rogers' question, but I'm not sure how germane it is to this, so I'm not gonna ask.

Uh anybody else want to ask a question of staff on the OCP amendment.

Thank you, Sterling.

I think that's everything.

Sorry, um this is this is not a venue to blurt out.

This is not a venue to blur note.

There is an opportunity for public participation.

Uh and and we'll come to that on the agenda that you can you can make sense.

Otherwise, sir, please please keep it in check.

Uh otherwise I'll have to ask you to leave.

Thank you.

Uh so we're down to number five, bylaws in consideration.

Official community plan number eight one one twenty eleven amendment, bylaw number eleven thirty-nine twenty twenty-four.

Were you gonna read that out, Sarah?

Or I think uh at this point the bylaw will be considered during the council meeting, and if we would take comments from the public uh both in the room and on the uh teams forum, that would be opportune time now.

Thanks, Sarah.

Any other comments from staff?

No, we can invite the public up to make comments or ask questions.

Thank you.

And uh Sarah, we got uh time, normal time for uh folks to speak.

Five minutes for this is at the chair's discretion.

Okay, uh we'll do with five minutes to uh make comments uh to uh council.

Uh so this opens up the microphone for anybody that wants to address council for up to five minutes on specifically the topic of the OCP amendment uh that we're doing and on nothing else.

Anybody in the room wish to provide feedback on the public hearing.

Three times.

Just on the uh bylaw amendment though, sir.

Yeah.

Can I ask you to approach the podium?

And there's actually a procedure here.

Sorry you missed the briefing at the beginning.

You just press the microphone so we capture your comments because it's also being broadcast, sir.

So if you just press the uh yeah, uh just on the bottom.

So I'm a renter.

I live in View Royal, love View Royal, love it.

Um, I'm at Christie Point.

We have our own concerns over Christie Point, but um this reeks of blanket rezoning.

Um, there's no assurance that foreign money won't flood into View Royal, snatch up single family, detached homes, and um like build four plexes, sixplexes, um quadruple their money.

People like myself, people like most of the people in this room can't possibly afford to do that.

This legislation is garbage, it's absolute garbage.

It's a top-down bullshit move that I despise.

And I think most of the people sitting here would agree with me.

Um, it's gonna be inflationary, it's gonna be disastrous for um my kids, my grandkids.

It's obscene, and that's my take on it.

You guys need to mitigate this, you need to ensure that you know, if okay, if this is going forward, you can't have floods of Chinese money, you can't have floods of Indian money, you can't have floods of foreign money coming into View Royal and screwing it up.

It's a beautiful, beautiful part of this island.

And it it will just be defiled if if we don't stop the floodgates of foreign investment.

Do you understand?

Thanks for listening to me.

Thanks for your comments.

And I will say that it wasn't the town's um unilateral decision to come up with um this bylaw as well.

It was a uh order from the province and legislation that was passed in order to do so.

And um perhaps the the province would be more um and the federal government uh would be more inclined to uh deal with foreign investment and how that actually builds houses in in uh view royal and the rest of municipalities is there anybody else that wants to speak on um the OCP amendment and the public hearing seeing nobody else in the room Carl I'll go to you on the phone is there anybody that has called in for it mayor Tobias we have a caller last four digits two two seven four thanks, Carl.

Could caller with the last four two two seven four please unmute and state your name and your street address and address counsel on the topic of the public hearing, please.

Hi gang.

Just uh can't get logged on to uh the video again through the Zoom app so for the uh Microsoft Teams, so that's similar of a note to Carl.

So no questions at this time, sorry for the interruption.

Thank you.

Uh no problem.

So, Carl, no further callers?

Mayor Tobias, we have no other callers at this time.

Uh thanks, Carl.

And I think we've got one uh issue of correspondence that Councilor Rogers had uh had introduced earlier.

Get a seconder.

Second gotta move to receipt.

Counselor Matson seconds.

All those in favor?

Any opposed?

And just to clarify, his question was around why there wasn't any specifics in um in the OCP amendment, but those will come as Leanne mentioned in the in the actual zoning bylaw.

I think that's uh concludes everything, Sarah, for the public hearing portion.

Can I get a move to terminate?

Move by Councillor Matson, seconded by Councillor McKenzie.

All those in favor?

Any opposed?

Being none opposed.

Motion carries.