Source From: The Standard
Kieth Gowans is pictured inside an accessory dwelling unit built by St. Catharines-based Aloft Housing Inc.
Garden suites do offer a lot of promise, providing a charming and functional extension of living space that can enhance the beauty and utility of a property. They are appealing for various reasons, including the potential for rental income, accommodation for extended family, or even a private retreat. However, there are several challenges associated with them...
For a tiny home manufacturing company based in St. Catharines, this could be a big moment.
Keith Gowans, president of Aloft Housing Inc., has recently taken stock of where the modular home builder’s products could be erected in the Garden City, which is poised to amend its bylaws that allow for self-contained detached accessory dwelling units on residential properties.
“There are many lots we’ve identified, over 300 lots in St. Catharines, that can accommodate an additional unit in the backyard and provide supplementary income, rental space for folks and maybe even multigenerational living,” he said.
“The nice thing about this is when you’re starting to intensify the urban spaces, it doesn’t put much pressure on the infrastructure because the infrastructure is already there, so we tie into the existing services at the house as opposed to going up the street.”
Gowans, the company founder and former Habitat for Humanity chief operations officer, said the biggest demand in the housing market is for single-person dwellings, with numbers swelling in recent years.
“There’s just no stock, so certainly that would help aid that gap.
“And it would open up those others, like Niagara Regional Housing or other organization housing, then it would become a little less of a wait time,” he said.
Inside a modular home built by Aloft Housing Inc.
St. Catharines allows for internal accessory dwelling units (ADU) within a home, but also external ADUs, which have more stringent requirements tied to the primary dwelling unit’s utilities, including sewer, water and electrical.
Internal ADUs are limited in size to either 60 square metres or 40 per cent of the square footage of the primary dwelling unit, whichever number is smallest.
Much like the internal ADUs, external units are capped in size. Taya Devlin, St. Catharines senior city planner, said the maximum floor area for a detached ADU is currently 105 square metres or 40 per cent of the primary dwelling unit.
“The City of Catharines has a zoning bylaw outlining the permissions for properties within the city for everything from land use to parking requirements, buildings, setbacks, height. In our bylaw, we have policies speaking to accessory dwelling units and what size they can be, where they can be, and those have been in place since 2013 when our bylaw was adopted.”
Devlin said with recent changes to the provincial Planning Act, , St. Catharines hopes to amend its policy to “bring it up to date with those regulations and make some improvements.”
“Staff are working on the draft amendment coming up with proposed new zoning provisions for ADU use,” she said.
Devlin said what that will look like for St. Catharines is still yet to be determined.
A bathroom featured in an Aloft Housing Inc. modular home.
Draft materials for public consultation will be posted to the city’s website.
Devlin said the public will be provided ample time to review plans and provide feedback so the city can best implement changes to its zoning bylaw.
“With anything, there’s always various opinions, you’re always going to run into many different thoughts, and what I’m hearing a lot right now is there’s quite a bit of interest for people to have accessory dwelling units,” she said.
“We don’t have the option to not allow them, so the goal is to come up with the best policy framework to support the use while balancing everyone’s enjoyment of their homes,” she said.
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