Basement apartments legalized

A plan to legalize all basement apartments across the city – no rezoning required – will come before city councillors on Monday.

There will be a special public meeting on Monday evening at City Hall on the subject.

The plan was already endorsed unanimously by the city’s new planning advisory committee in April.

Currently, basement apartments are only legal in the downtown. Anywhere else in the city, the property owner applies for a rezoning to make the apartment legal.

But under new provincial legislation, municipalities are expected to allow secondary apartments in the basements of houses as well as in smaller backyard buildings.

It’s a good idea, according to a new city staff report, because it allows homeowners to supplement their income to better afford home ownership, for example, and also increases the number of apartments in the city.

That’s important, the report points out, since the apartment vacancy rate is sitting at about one per cent – one of the lowest rates in Canada.

The report also states that there are 350 legal basement apartments in the city dating back to a short period in the 1990s when they were legal.

Basement were allowed under provincial legislation introduced in 1994 but repealed in 1996.

Under the proposed new rules, having a basement apartment would require the homeowner to have a third parking space for a tenant (although exceptions would be made downtown, where transit is easily accessible).