The City of Richmond has received three applications to build houses larger than permitted on agricultural land and two will be before council on Monday evening.
The planning committee dealt with two applications this week to build homes up to 500 square metres in the Agricultural Land Reserve in Richmond, which would be 100 square metres larger than what council decided in December would be the maximum size.
In both cases, the applicants were far along in the process when council changed the bylaw, explained Coun. Linda McPhail, who is chair of the planning committee, and she felt personally that it was fair to allow a larger home.
The applicant for the property on River Road had already spent money demolishing the old house and had plans to make the new home accessible so both his mother and mother-in-law could move in. About a thousand square feet of the plans are directly related to the accessible features, McPhail explained.
“As a community, we value looking after our elders,” she said. “(The applicant is) going to an extraordinary length to actually be able to do this.”
Council members asked staff what would have to be done to farm that piece of property, and the response was that fill needed to be brought in, something that has to go through the ALC.
While the staff recommendation was to deny the applications, the planning committee recommended that the application for the house at 22260 River Rd. be accepted and that will come back for first reading to council on Monday.
The second application, for 11120 Granville Ave., resulted in a 3-3 tie vote and will come back to council for debate on Monday evening.
Anyone can make a rezoning application, McPhail pointed out, and it will come to council. But for other applications for larger houses in the ALR, she said she thinks there needs to be “exceptional circumstances” to allow them.
“They’re going to have to be able to prove that they were in process – far along the process,” McPhail said.
A third application for a house up to 500 square metres was submitted to the city on March 4 and is currently being reviewed by city staff.
The Ministry of Agriculture set the maximum house size in the ALR to 500 square metres, but Richmond city council decided in December to limit this further to 400 square metres.
