Motor home parked near lakeside in campground (IStock image)

A TNRD Director is pushing to get restrictions established for the size of cabins allowed at lakeshore resorts in the regional district.

Barriere Mayor Ward Stamer is set to table an idea at Thursday’s Thompson Nicola Regional District Board meeting to potentially get restrictions in place to limit the size of cabins allowed at lakeshore resorts within the district.

It comes as Stamer says he has noticed an increase in large rental cabins – that look like residential homes – built on lake properties, specifically RV Resort sites.

“A proponent specified they would like to change the scope of the original plan, and put small cabins on that property – of 1,000 square feet – but then it came to light that actually, there have been some changes made and now they are building houses.”

As it stands there are currently no limits on the size of a cabin in resort zones, with Stamer describing the TNRD Zoning Bylaw 2400 as “really vague.”

“Somebody could say they’re gonna build a couple of 600 or 800 square feet cabins, and the next thing you know as long as they get the approval through Interior Health, MOTI, BC Hydro, and those kinds of things, they can build whatever they want,” he said.

“They could start building 3,000 or 4,000 square foot homes if they so desire and that is not what the intent of the zoning was in the first place.”

Stamer says his biggest concern with the lack of zoning restrictions on resort properties is when it comes to public access.

“It’s getting harder and harder for people to actually use our lakes and the facilities we’ve been able to use for years and now all of a sudden become limited because somebody else wants to come along and build a big mega house,” said Stamer.

“I just traveled to Williams Lake and back and I see a couple along the way that are for sale… I’m quite sure there might be people — especially from the Lower Mainland — that would love to be able to come up and buy those, and then the next thing you know, there will be no public access and three or four or five houses built there instead.”

With that, Stamer suggests it makes more sense to let the board control the development of these properties moving forward, noting that he is concerned property owners on lakeshore resorts can find a way around re-zoning processes, as it won’t go to a public hearing.

“Then, if we had a piece of undeveloped property, somebody could come and say ‘This isn’t going to work, I cannot put 40 RV sites here, it just wont pay’ but we could split it in half and put Strata title on one side, and RV lots on the other side, and its something the board could decide on a case by case basis,” said Stamer.

“But, we can’t even do that; we can’t even get the development office with Mr. Krause’s team to come up with something similar because we don’t have any teeth when it comes to the actual bylaw in that piece of property.”

He hopes his notice of motion will allow the TNRD to look at what other regional districts are doing with zoning processes for lakeshore resorts.