If you want to stay close to family as you head into retirement, Edmonton's recent changes to garage and garden suite regulations could play in your favour.
If you want to stay close to family as you head into retirement, Edmonton's recent changes to garage and garden suite regulations could play in your favour.
"This is my permanent home now; I love the area," says Carillon Cameron, who moved into her Westmount garden suite in May. "Everything is close – shopping, medical appointments, coffee shops. It's lovely."
She and her daughter, Jane Purvis, started planning for her laneway home six years ago. When the city loosened regulations in 2015 to allow garden suites mid-block – not just on corner lots – they hired a designer and began the permitting process.
Further changes in 2017 have increased the scope of where people can built a suite, says Ashley Salvador, who completed a study of garage and garden suites in Edmonton last year.
"They've also made special allowance for elevator and stairways. They're no longer included in the square footage, so now they don't eat into the living space."
One important amendment is the merger of garden and garage suites into one use class.
"It used to be, above the garage was one class and garden suite another," says Salvador. "So, now you can have living space on the ground floor and on the top floor."
Garage and garden suites have taken off since they were introduced by the city 10 years ago. Almost 80 have gone up in the last two years, compared to only 16 in 2014.
They address several urban design and individual needs, says Mick Graham, owner of Singletree Builders in Edmonton. His company specializes in infill.
"They're perfect for someone in a change of life who wants to move closer to family, and still have some independence," he says. "They add to what is known as invisible density in the city. There's a whole bunch of different problems these can be a solution to."
Graham is aware there are concerns around infill, with some neighbourhoods against the higher density and associated problems.
"Since a garage suite will be a two-storey building almost inevitably, one of the complaints is that it sticks out like a sore thumb,' says Graham, who spoke at the seniors housing forum in September. "But if we want to increase density we're going to have to accept things like this. It's a normal process for cities to go through."
Salvador's research indicates 40 per cent of backyard suites in Edmonton are built for friends or family. Rents are zero to quite low, averaging $500 per month.
"That's so important in terms of affordability," says Salvador. "It addresses issues of urban isolation, more critical for less mobile people who stand to lose important social connections that help them be healthy and happy."
For Carillon Cameron, it's having family close by – but not on top of each other. The real benefit is having family together, agrees her daughter.
"My own kids used to be in after school care, now they have their grandmother," she says. "I see how my mom is better connected with the kids and their school, the other school parents, with the community."
Besides the garden suite, her mother's only other option would have been to move away, because in their neighbourhood she can't afford a house.
"Now we have a brand-new structure and share maintenance costs on one lot," says Purvis.
Salvador stresses that these suites benefit not only seniors, but the entire community.
"Communities are very organic, they're always changing. A good community has diversity of age and background," she says. "Diversity of housing by default will get diversity in terms of people, which helps neighbourhoods thrive."
With her partner Travis Fong, Salvador co-founded YEGardenSuites in April to help people navigate the garden suite process and connect people to builders. They held their first workshop this spring.
Tickets are available for their third workshop, being held Nov. 22–25. It includes a garden suite tour.
For more information on garage and garden suites, go to yegardensuites.com or www.cityofedmontoninfill.ca/home-buyers/garage-and-garden-suites
