City of Barrie could tighten regulations around 'second-suites'

Barrie's second suite bylaw helping or hindering? The City of Barrie's second suite bylaw is concerning for some residents who feel it's not helping the affordable housing crisis as planned.

Barrie, Ont. — The City of Barrie is looking to make a change and tighten regulations around detached accessory dwellings.

The planning committee gave the initial approval to the changes on Tuesday.

"When we suddenly allowed them, we suddenly realized there were going to be complaints," said Deputy Mayor Barry Ward. "We got complaints over privacy concerns about trees, parking, and they were just not affordable."

It's an issue Arlene McCann has been dealing with for months after her neighbour got approval to build a second house in his backyard.

In the process, the roots of a century-old tree that bordered the property were severed.

"We have no help from the city whatsoever," McCann said. "The owner has reached out and offered to cut the tree down, our Norway Spruce, but in that offer, there is nothing about replacing the tree."

The province loosened rules around secondary dwellings in 2019 as part of a strategy to create more affordable housing.

Now the city is looking at changes like getting rid of basements, size restrictions and addressing the impact on mature trees.

"We are going to have a site plan review, so every time one is proposed, staff will look at it to make sure there are not these concerns," Ward said.

Changes would establish a maximum unit size equivalent to 45 per cent of the total gross floor area of the main building, up to 807 square feet for the secondary dwelling.

Increasing the minimum rear-yard setback to seven meters is also being proposed.

Since 2020, the number of secondary dwellings in Barrie has nearly doubled from 15 to 27 this year to date.

Additionally, according to the city, 25 applications are currently waiting on approval.

"We are approving building a backyard house in every backyard in every established neighbourhood," said Barbara Mackie, co-chair for the Allandale Neighbourhood Association. "Those are the neighbourhoods that have the lots big enough to do this, but you can't do that without taking out thousands and thousands of trees."

The Allandale Neighbourhood Association said that while it's a good first step and is happy with what it's seen so far, the proposed changes do not go far enough, especially when it comes to notifying neighbours and the environment.

"To give investors the ability to take down trees and only do plantings, we are never going to see those trees in our lifetime again," co-chair Cathy Colebatch said. "We really need to take care, and we are hoping for some stronger measures when it comes to the environmental aspect. We want to keep working with the planning staff and council to ensure that the existing residents in these neighbourhoods and environment are protected."

The proposed changes will go to city council for final approval on Oct. 4.

As for the 25 pending applications, the city said the completed ones would be processed under the old bylaw.