The City of Kitchener’s Planning and Strategic Initiatives Committee will be holding a virtual public meeting on April 19th at 7 pm.
“Additional Dwelling Units” is on the agenda, which refers to coach houses, backyard homes, laneway suites or tiny homes. You can watch the meeting through kitchener.ca/watch.
If you wish to make either verbal or written comments you need to register as a delegate with Legislative Services prior to the meeting (kitchener.ca/delegations).
The agenda includes
- OPA/zoning amendments for the Polocorp development on Mill/Queen
- 298 Lawrence OPA and re-zoning
- Additional Dwelling Units. The project team working on the amendment to Zoning Bylaw 85-1 will be presenting their recommendations to the Committee to allow additional detached units (coach houses, backyard homes, laneway suites or tiny homes) in R1 to R7 zones. Recommendations include size of unit, setbacks, building height, location on the lot. (in a conversation I had with the project team they indicated that there are potentially 10,000 lots in the City which would be eligible through the additional dwelling bylaws).
You personally may not be interested in building an additional dwelling on your lot but this might be a zoning bylaw amendment that you may wish to understand as it will no doubt have an impact on other lots throughout Mt. Hope/Breithaupt Park.
Here are a few recent articles about laneway houses and changing zoning by-laws in other cities:
- New zoning rules allow tiny houses, granny flats throughout Kitchener – October 27, 2019, WR Record
- Kitchener approves zoning changes to allow tiny houses, granny flats – October 29, 2019, WR Record
- Laneway home advocates hope for more approvals amid city’s ‘housing crisis’ – January 2020, CBC Toronto
Your Midtown KW Neighbourhood 