Quesnel residents can now get a break on secondary suites.
Lindsay Allman is Quesnel’s Housing Coordinator…
“As an incentive for residents to either convert illegal suites to become legal, or to add a secondary suite in their existing single detached dwelling unit, administration is proposing that we wave building permit fees from February 26th, 2020 until December 31st, 2022.”
Following that grace period, there will be a surcharge on any permits or illegal units which have not complied.
Allman said there are a few reasons for this change…
“The first reason that we’re recommending this is to encourage new builds of secondary suites to increase our rental housing stock. As we know from our housing action plan it is quite small and limited. As well this will give us a better idea of the number of suites that exist in our community as building permits is how we track that data, and most importantly to increase tenant safety by ensuring that any existing secondary suites are in compliance with regulations such as the building code.”
Councillor Mitch Vik, also the Acting Mayor, wanted to know what the cost would be to the city.
Tanya Turner, the Director of Development Services, went over a few of the numbers…
“The estimated construction value of a suite is something that is very hard to predict, but we estimate about 5 to 8 thousand dollars for that construction value. That would mean that the value of the minimum building permit would be, which is 80 dollars, and it would also be the minimum plumbing fee which is 50 dollars plus fixtures. We estimate about 170 dollars per permit for that. That would be for the construction of a new suite in an existing home, not the conversion of an existing illegal suite. For that we have surcharges as Lindsay noted which would apply to places that were not build without permit originally, That would escalate those permit values to 265 dollars.”.
City Council voted back in December to bring in a new zoning bylaw that allows secondary suites in residential zones throughout the city.