The city of Kelowna held an Infill Housing Symposium yesterday to engage with the community around their new Infill Fast-Track initiative. Kelowna has been a leader in this area, allowing secondary suites and carriage houses since the 1990s. This summer, the city launched its Infill Fast-Track initiative, expediting approvals for pre-approved designs that allow 4 to 6 units per property. The process aims to issue combined Development and Building Permits within 10 days, compared to the usual 2 to 4 months.
I had the pleasure of attending the Kelowna Infill Housing Symposium, an exceptional event organized by Alkarim Devani, co-founder of mddl, who has been instrumental in driving education around infill development. The symposium provided invaluable resources from education, design, financial tools, and developers, all sharing their expertise and insights.
A standout aspect of the event was James Moore from the City of Kelowna, who has been leading the charge in breaking down barriers to housing development. His leadership in implementing innovative solutions, such as Kelowna’s new 10-day building permit issuance, is truly commendable. This groundbreaking initiative will significantly reduce red tape, streamline processes, and fast-track project timelines, making it easier to bring more housing to the market.
The City of Kelowna showed an impressive openness to feedback and adaptability, emphasizing a proactive approach to creating meaningful change in housing supply. With such dedication from both the city and partners like mddl, we are excited to see even more fast-track plans come to life, and witness the positive impact this will have on Kelowna’s housing landscape.
– Michael Stephenson, Co-Founder, addy
Stephen Jagger, co-founder of addy, participated in one of the panels discussing infill housing aka missing middle housing to talk about how the community capital aspect of addy’s platform works and how novel it is for supporting the creation of much needed rental stock in the city of Kelowna.
Stay tuned for exciting new infill investment opportunities coming soon to the addy platform. addy is the centre of community capital, government zoning changes and helping to shape the future of real estate investment. Join a growing community of Canadians investing in the creation of much-needed missing middle housing today.
