(Photo credit: City of Quesnel).

By Stephanie Swensrude

HOUSING DENSITY

Quesnel pre-approves secondary dwelling designs to help provide affordable housing

Jul 31, 2022 | 12:57 PM

QUESNEL — The City of Quesnel is making it a lot easier to add housing density to neighbourhoods by pre-approving five designs for a laneway house, or a second building on a pre-existing single-family lot.

In many jurisdictions, those wanting to build more housing on their property must first apply for permits and go through public hearings before beginning construction. The City of Quesnel pre-approved five designs for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) so people can build the housing without so much red tape.

Tony Osborn is the principal architect that designed the units.

“The idea is that these packages are ready to go. They don’t require any permit processing, they’ll be available for a period of time for free to any resident to pick up at City Hall and go out and start building same-day, if they wish,” he said in a council meeting Tuesday (July 26).

“[It] really simplifies things and should create a lot of affordable housing in short order ,” he said.

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Mayor Bob Simpson noted the challenges with the city’s housing availability as long ago as October 2020.

Osborn designed plans for two carriage houses and three secondary dwellings. A carriage house is attached to a structure like a garage or storage unit while a secondary dwelling is freestanding. The square footage for the plans ranges from 750 to 1150 and the plans have one or two bedrooms. The designs will be flexible, allowing builders to rotate and mirror the plans.

The most inexpensive plan would cost approximately $125,000 to $220,000 to build, depending on finishes and the amount of bedrooms chosen.

All of the designs were made with energy efficiency in mind, meeting Step 3 of the BC Energy Step Code, while one of the designs meets Step 5, which is “almost to net-zero energy”.

The packages should be available by August. The floor plans can be viewed here.