Left to right, councillors Len Taylor, Greg Lightfoot, and Bill Ironstand at this week's meeting. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Zoning changes

City looks to allow residential use in more commercial districts

Apr 25, 2024 | 12:06 PM

North Battleford city council is looking at having more commercial districts be able to accommodate residential use, to offer more options for housing in the community.

At its meeting this week, council gave first reading to a proposed amendment to zoning bylaw #1971 to allow residential use in more commercial areas. The city will advertise to give public notice of the proposed changes until May 9. After that, it will come back to council for second and third readings.

Currently, only C1 (commercial downtown) and C2 (neighbourhood commercial districts) permit rental apartments as a discretionary use.

The amendment aims to also allow rental apartments in C3 (Arterial Commercial District), and C3A (Large Lot Arterial Commercial District).

C3 is on 100 Street, north of 14 Avenue, while the C3A district covers 99 Street or Highway 4, north of Territorial Drive in North Battleford.

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The proposal was submitted by Junior Planner Roger Nguyen and presented by Planning Director James Johansen.

Administration said part of the aim is to promote more public and private sector investment in the city.

“Our proposal is to make the C3 and C3A residential use requirements, to match the zoning requirements for C1 and C2,” Johansen said. “This will allow diversity of residential housing.”

The proposal will also help create more affordable and middle-income housing in the city, and may also offer increased economic development opportunities as a result.

Johansen noted this will also “bring consistency with the bylaw.” Instead of C3 and C3A being able to be used only by caretakers, owners or managers for residential purposes, it will bring these districts in line with C1 and C2 provisions, to accommodate residential use in general, for rental apartments.

“The whole idea behind this is: How do we allow more residential development,” Mayor David Gillan said. “We are just trying to look at how we can be flexible, to allow residential units to be occupied or built in traditionally commercial areas because we want more opportunities. Right now, we know it’s hard to get housing in not just North Battleford, but in Canada, it’s a problem.”

The mayor said this is just one way the city is looking at how to allow more property owners to develop residential housing.

“It’s well documented across Canada that there’s a lot of pressure to find homes in Canada,” he said. “The federal government is spending a lot of money promoting and incentivizing homebuilding, and that means: How do we get more density? How do we get more people living in the same sort of square area of land? [Instead of] one person with a big house, let’s have 20 people in smaller units. So, we’re always looking at ways to improve density in the city, especially now. Maybe 10 years ago it was different. But now in Canada, there is a lot of pressure for people looking for homes.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsnow