Harrison's zoning bylaw will once again come to the public in the form of a public hearing, to be held Monday, Dec. 17 at 7 p.m.
Council reviewed a staff report from the previous public hearing, gave the bylaw a second reading, and made a number of amendments.
Those amendments include limiting secondary suites and carriage homes to R2 zones, which currently already allow duplexes. The initially-proposed version of the bylaw did not limit which residential zones could have secondary suites. That prompted public backlash at the Nov. 19 public hearing, where all residents who spoke stated they were against a sweeping bylaw that would allow secondary suites in the Village.
On Monday night, council seemed to agree with that sentiment.
"I don't visualize suites in R1 zoning," said Councillor Allan Jackson. He made a motion that secondary suites only be allowed in new construction. After further discussion with council and staff, he withdrew that motion.
Councillor Zoltan Kiss made a motion that the suites only be allowed in R2 zoning, which already allows for duplexes.
Council voted all in favour for that amendment.
The discussion was based on a staff recommendation that council to abandon the idea of suites in all zones, and instead create a new zone that would permit them.
Another amendment to the zoning bylaw would be to reduce the minimum size of an R1 lot to 540 metres.
That would bring all properties into compliance, said Ian Crane, manager of development services.
They also made an amendment to remove the medium density R5 zone reference, because there are currently no properties zoned that way.
Other amendments were made to clean up the hefty bylaw, including section about setbacks, because it's already dealt with in provincial legislation.
"We felt the setback requirements were redundant because they are already in the provincial regulations, so we are suggesting to delete it," Crane said.
Schedule B, which was to identify the floodplain, was missing from the initial proposal, and that is being added.
The last time the zoning bylaw was addressed was in the late '90s, staff has said at recent meetings.
The public hearing will be followed by the regularly scheduled council meeting on the same night.
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