Secondary Suites Legislation - Clarification

Sunday, 25 July 2010 17:00 Written by Peach Akerhielm

These points of clarification are in response to a letter on the subject of secondary suites submitted by resident Pauline Brider, and published on this website one week ago. While reacting to its content is a natural response, I have chosen not to. Instead, I would like to remind the author that a public and personalized attack on any Councillor only discourages good, sane people from running for Council in Lions Bay. Ironically, it works against what the writer seems to want.

Turning to Ms Brider's comments, she sent in a tightly-reasoned, four-page letter which became part of the correspondence to the Public Hearing. Councillor Ronsley and I certainly read it, as we did her other correspondence to Council since that time. I have no idea why Ms Brider thinks that we would not have considered her views. We did. We considered them in the same way as we considered all other input, letters and comments from Lions Bay residents.

Considering does not necessarily mean agreeing with, however.

To address a few of the points raised by Ms Brider:

The Secondary Suites legislation is not any Councillor’s "brainchild" as Ms Brider suggests; it was called for in two successive Official Community Plans created by the residents of Lions Bay. This Council unanimously decided to be guided by the Official Community Plan and has proceeded accordingly.
The initiative to legalize Secondary Suites is far from having been developed in “unseemly haste”. The research into the bylaw change began in late 2008, and the first of three public meetings was held last October, in 2009. Two more public meetings were held in May, and a Public Hearing was held in June. Around eight drafts of the legislation and ten drafts of the policy were seen by Council. The bylaw clauses and the proposed Secondary Suites surcharge are pretty standard. They are consistent with those in use in the municipalities around us.
As Councillor Ronsley and I brought successive drafts of the Secondary Suite Bylaw legislation and the Secondary Suites Policy to Council, we summarized issues raised by residents as we went along and published them on the website. The final Secondary Suites Policy clearly reflects the concerns of many residents, as evidenced by Council appropriately modifying our early recommendations. For example, upon hearing the concerns of residents over the issue of retaining affordable housing, we did not proceed with our initial recommendations to have inspections and upgrades of illegal suites.
With regard to the Secondary Suites surcharge, there has been a call in two Official Community Plans for owners of Secondary Suites to make a fair contribution toward the cost of Village services, as there are two dwellings in one residence. The rate of surcharge for a secondary suite will be 40% of the utilities bill for that property, as approved in the Council Secondary Suite Policy. As such, for an occupied suite in 2010, the surcharge would have been $332 in total, that is, less than $30 a month. The majority on Council think that this is a fair contribution. I, myself, have definitely listened to and understood the passionate arguments regarding fairness. Many of these debates revolve around how much garbage people really create or how much water they use. However, the majority on Council consider fairness in the context of the larger picture. A surcharge on the utilities bill is how most municipalities administer the Secondary Suites surcharge. Utilizing this mechanism allows the Village to forego the creation of another, and new billing system.

Finally, Ms Brider seems concerned that Councillor Simons’ views on Secondary Suites were not heard at Council. Published minutes will indicate that this is not the case. I myself received nearly three dozen e-mails on the subject from Councillor Simons, sometimes 4 and 5 lengthy e-mails over a 24-hour period on a weekend. Councillor Simons also outreached privately to obtain input from residents. This right of the Councillor was respected by other Councillors, as we all obtain resident input. That said, what residents fed back to Councillor Simons then was not transparent to the rest of Council. When any Councillor (including myself) claims to be representing certain residents or public opinion in general, and cannot provide hard evidence to back it up, the rest of Council can and should challenge the speaker. Council is a place where vigorous debate takes place!

A propos of this, Mayor Broughton has asked all of the Councillors to message residents in this way: “Residents, if you want your views on any subject heard and appreciated by all of Mayor and Council, it is by far the best thing to make them known to all of us. Please write to Mayor and Council! Then you know, and we know, that we have all heard the same thing from you, and we can weigh it the democratic way, which is the job of all of Council.”

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