Laneway housing advocates and opponents will make presentations to Vancouver city council October 21 in the wake of a report that notes council has approved permits for 100 such homes in the past year.
“There will be some tweaks to the program,” said Jake Fry, who owns Smallworks, a company building laneway homes.
“Long term, they might open up more lots to potentially be able to house these homes. But, it doesn’t look like that will happen in this round of amendments,” Fry told Business in Vancouver October 18.
Fry believes council might want to dictate a few design elements such as the pitch of roofs or make guidelines to change the maximum height allowable.
He also believes council might allow slightly larger footprints for laneway homes but keep 750 square feet as the maximum allowable square footage.
Smallworks has doubled in size in the past year to employ 20 staff and generate about $4 million in annual revenue.
After Fry spoke with BIV, Intelligent Living Corp. (OTCBB:ILVC), an automation and technology solutions provider using green building practices, announced it had signed a letter of intent with Smallworks to form a joint venture that would expand Smallworks’ production capacity to handle annual sales of $20 million.
Smallworks had raised its profile during the 2010 Winter Olympics (See “Smallworks aims to make big impression during Games” – issue 1060; February 16-22, 2010).