Welcome To My Carriage House
Seniors Choice Newsmagazine
January 2005
- By Rudy Loeser -
Once upon a time, the carriage house was one of the necessities of the landed gentry, housing, as it did, the carriages of the household. In many cases it also housed the coachman. The folks who lived in the manor were known, by shopkeepers in the village, as "Carriage Trade", which entered the English language and is still in use. Carriages became obsolete, except, of course, for occasions of the realm, when the Queen still goes about in one when the weather smiles on her enterprise.
With the arrival of the automobile, the carriage house became a thing of the past. The Lord and Lady of the manor discovered the joys of driving themselves, eliminating the need for a coachman. So the world headed for the new millennium, seemingly content to have buried the term "Carriage House".
But not quite. There began, during the last decade of the last century, a quiet revival. People began tearing down the old garages and replacing them with structures which not only sheltered the family cars but also housed a home business, the in-laws, or the teenagers. Needless to say the practice grew as those upstairs dwellings also took on the function of the 'mortgage helper'.
These structures came to be called Carriage Houses, which makes sense because people simply can't live in garages. Throughout the Thompson/Okanagan these new Carriage Houses are being built at a surprising rate and nowhere more so than in Kelowna. At first these buildings tended to look like boxes, with two garage doors at ground level and an apartment upstairs, often totally out of character with the primary home and the neighborhood. Now, municipal administrations are putting guidelines in place relating to design, in addition to those already on the books regarding size.
We recently looked at some neighborhoods that seem to follow the trend rather rapidly. With the kind help of Re/Max realtor Doug Kirk, whose name was given to us as the man who probably knows more about Carriage Houses than anyone else, we first cruised the north Kelowna neighborhoods. There we saw examples of both the plain box and the more pleasing 'designer box'. On Cawston Avenue we saw examples of both while our next jaunt took us to the area around the Kelowna General Hospital.
First, we saw a place we considered to be very funky, on Abbott Street. Entry is via a side door and, if you feel young and agile you'll be able to negotiate the stairway to get to your living/dining/kitchen/home office open plan. It is imaginative and made for someone who is - well, young, agile and imaginative. A home on Raymer, on the other hand, requires no steps to get through a great layout, which centers around the living space with a high, domed ceiling. Windows look out onto a smallish, private grassy space dominated by a tree that provides both shade and privacy. Very upscale stainless steel kitchen, modern bath fixtures and two bedrooms, plus garage with access to and from the residence. Only a few meters down the lane, however, we came to a different type of auxiliary building. Huge, well designed and obviously a building housing two residences. That confused us so we consulted City Hall.
We met with Planning and Development Officer Keiko Nittel to get an overview of regulations then and now, since there had obviously been a shift in character of carriage houses during the last few years.
When the trend began, regulations dealt strictly with zoning. No guidelines were in place regarding form and character. All that changed on June 1 of this year, when the issuance of building permits became dependent on satisfying guidelines in a preliminary Development Permit. Section 5 of Bylaw 800 requires that development should be sensitive to the privacy of adjacent dwellings, that it promote safety and security of persons and property and be sensitive to such issues as accessibility for persons with physical disabilities, etc. Section 6 requires that dwellings, though they may be at the back of the property and have access from a lane, should be clearly identifiable and accessible from the street. It sets out guidelines for outdoor lighting and landscaping as well as the exterior finishing, which must conform to the primary residence.
Finally, it states that operators of secondary dwelling units are required to have a valid business license with the City of Kelowna if the owner does not live in either residence, or if the secondary unit is used for business purposes which would require a business license.
For most owners of Carriage Houses, the additions provide extra income while approximately 20% are used as home offices or studios. The rest provide homes for grown children or for elderly parents. They offer an elegant solution to the problem of the extended family and the bylaw ensures that they are sensitive to the character of the existing neighborhood. We expect that their popularity will continue and their numbers will increase as people become more familiar with what they offer. |
