By Steve Hubrecht
Planning consultants have completed an early draft of the new, updated official community plan (OCP) for Radium Hot Springs.
The village has been working to update its OCP throughout the year, and during a committee of the whole meeting in October, Bluerock Planning presented its “draft directions” to Radium council. The draft offers a bold vision of the village’s potential future, outlining the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
“It’s a big document because it is a big change,” Radium mayor Mike Gray told the Pioneer. “This is the first time Radium has dove this deeply into the OCP since the village’s foundation (in 1990).”
The draft includes suggestions on how to help guide Radium’s growth, and covers a number of topics that have generated plenty of attention in recent years, including short-term rentals (STRs); where and how future growth should occur; the affordable housing crunch; and risks stemming from climate change (such as increased wildfires), among others.
In terms of housing, the draft cited Radium’s recently completed housing needs interim report, noting the report projects that 405 units of new housing will be needed in the next 20 years. The draft emphasizes just how daunting a figure this is by putting an “!” mark next to it, and pointing out that this number is for permanent residents, not just for accommodating visitors.
Where will these homes go?
The draft suggests the bulk of them — 260 — will need to go in northern Radium. Of those 260, 80 would slot into or near the existing subdivisions, condo buildings, and other developments to the north of Sinclair Creek and west of Highway 95. The remaining 180 would, according to the draft, need to go into currently undeveloped or very lightly developed land even farther north (to the northwest of the Elk Park Ranch development).
That still leaves 145 more units of housing, and the draft envisions 70 in Radium’s downtown core, another 70 to the west, closer to the golf course, and five along Radium’s stretch of Hwy. 93.
As several maps demonstrate, there is not too much choice about where growth can occur in Radium. The village is quite literally hemmed in on all sides by land that cannot be developed: agricultural land reserve (ALR) properties to the north and northeast; Kootenay National Park to the east; more ALR properties to the south and southeast; the Columbia Wetlands Wildlife Management Area to the southwest; sensitive riparian areas and floodplains to the west; and another stretch of the Columbia Wetlands to the northwest.
That said, infill is certainly an option to help add at least some more housing (and more businesses), and the draft proposes growing and strengthening the downtown by filling in vacant land there. It highlights six significant pieces of property downtown that are currently empty.
Where will 405 homes go in Radium? The draft OCP proposes 260 units in the north area, 140 in the south area, and five in the Hwy. 93 area.
SCREENSHOT
The draft emphasizes the role STRs play in the housing situation in Radium, noting there is “no way to tackle affordable housing without some regulation of STRs.” It elaborated that the market for STRs is “too strong, (STRs are) easy to operate, with low overhead, few regulatory barriers, and there’s a lack of available land for village boundary expansion.”
Planners outlined they heard “significant concerns” about STRs for Radium residents, who told the planner they favoured regulating the location and number of STRs in the village, as well as raising STR permit application fees.
Proposed policy directions in the draft include allowing stand-alone STRs (i.e. those in which the whole house is rented out, and the owner does not live on the property) in parts of town with commercial or resort zoning (such as the downtown and along Highway 93); allowing only owner-occupied STRs in residential areas (and only then as a secondary home use); but also allowing existing stand-alone STRs in residential and other non-commercial areas to continue (i.e. being ‘grandfathered’ in), but with no business license renewal if the property is sold.
In a survey, planners found 74 per cent of respondents had ‘high’ or ‘very high’ support for limiting the location of STRs; 83 per cent had ‘high’ or ‘very high’ support for limiting the total number of STRs; 34 per cent had ‘high’ or ‘very high’ support for grandfathering in existing STRs; and 16 per cent had ‘high’ or ‘very high’ support for not regulating STRs.
The draft contains a section entitled “revitalize Highway 93,” which notes that this section of Radium is “aging and needs redevelopment.” This strip is “an auto-oriented commercial area and it would be challenging to promote other types of development there,” wrote the planners, suggesting that it may be a good idea to try to shift STRs to this area. They also suggested changing OCP and zoning bylaws to encourage two and three-storey redevelopment along Highway 93.
Planners proposed the village change its residential zoning class to allow more diverse housing options; that it prohibit single detached dwellings in multi-unit residential housing zones (R3 and R4); and that it otherwise encourage suites, duplexes and townhouses. They also propose setting a minimum density for north Radium, writing that “development in north Radium is building out differently than previous master plans prescribed. More certainty for the future is needed. Lands in north Radium are building out at less density than anticipated and might compromise the village’s ability to meet housing needs, according to the housing needs report numbers. There is no minimum density specified in north Radium despite the R4 zoning.”
Gray acknowledged that the draft directions do outline some big challenges for the village, but said he feels the village can meet them.
He noted, for instance, that Radium was the first municipality to implement STR regulations back in 2021.
“It was a significant process, involving a lot of people and a lot of input. But STRs have changed a lot since then. We want to make sure we engage the community properly on that specific issue, and it needs to be addressed in the new OCP,” said Gray. “They (the planners) have got some suggestions. We’re looking at them. We’re considering them.”
The mayor agreed that 405 units of housing in 20 years may seem like quite a lot at first glance, but added that “once you realize how you can bite off these pieces, you see that a couple large developments can actually eat up a large chunk of that.” There are a few potential projects to create more housing that are already on council’s radar, he explained, but cautioned that “there’s still a whole bunch of things that have to happen” before any of those projects come to fruition.
A lot of communities have high targets for new homes in the housing needs reports, said Gray. “It’s the same for every community in the Columbia Valley, every community in the East Kootenay, every community in B.C., and every community in Canada.”
The entrance to Radium along Highway 93 “is such a defining piece of Radium, and of the whole Columbia Valley,” said Gray. “For the vast majority of people who come to the valley, that’s the first part of the valley they see. It’s the welcoming strip, the landing strip. We want to make sure that as the buildings there reach the natural end of their lifespans, as business models change, we want to make sure we make it an attractive place for new people and businesses to come in.”
In terms of Radium being hemmed in, Gray explained that the small footprint of the village was intentionally part of its original design.
“We’ve had a lot of success with it,” he said. For instance, infrastructure is easier to design and more affordable to maintain, and a compact community is more walkable and pedestrian-friendly.
“But the flip side is that when you need to add 405 units of housing in 20 years, it gives you some limiting factors,” he added.
