The recently percolating issue of secondary suites and where they may be built will be the focus of much discussion by Sylvan Lake councillors in the near future.
They decided to do a comprehensive review of town regulations regarding secondary suites after reviewing a report prepared by senior planner Jolene Tejkl at Monday night’s meeting.
“A specific and targeted review of secondary suite regulations would allow an in-depth, focused look at our current regulations,” she wrote. “The review would explore several ideas to address them and find a solution that council is supportive of ...”
A review of the town’s Land Use Bylaw is currently underway but since most of the items being considered are housekeeping and clean up items, “‘in order to streamline and make the bylaw a more accurate and user friendly document”‘, councillors decided to discuss secondary suites separately.
“‘Recently, secondary suites have become a fairly controversial matter and the risk associated with including them in the general overall review is the process could become focused on the single issue of secondary suites and the various other amendments contemplated not given the attention they deserve by the public, administration and council alike,”‘ wrote Tejkl. “‘Furthermore, secondary suite amendments will likely require considerable public input which will have implications on the timing required to complete the overall review.”‘
Her report also provided discussion on the pros and cons with having either a development officer of Municipal Planning Commission as the approving authority for secondary suites. However that portion of the report received little attention from councillors at this stage.
At their June 23 meeting they’d defeated a motion which would have delegated the approving authority back to a development officer.