A municipal councillor’s previously denied application to store a houseboat in his backyard has been given new life – in limbo.
At its Dec. 13 meeting, District of Sicamous council voted to stay Coun. Malcolm Makayev’s development variance permit application to vary the maximum allowable length of a boat or vessel that can be stored on his Kappel Street property.
Council originally voted against the application at its Nov. 23 meeting. Now, the application will be on hold until the district completes its zoning bylaw review in 2017.
“Now that we’ve got our OCP (official community plan) behind us, we’re going to be doing a bylaw review,” said Mayor Terry Rysz. “The bylaw review will affect this variance.”
Council also voted to not enforce the current zoning bylaw on Makayev’s property, in effect allowing him to store his houseboat there until the zoning bylaw review is done.
“Right now we’re just leaving it in place until we review the bylaw, and if the bylaw stays the same, then we’ll enforce (it) if he continues to leave his boat there,” said Rysz. “He knows that. If you want to really coat this with sugar… we kind of did him a bit of a favour for a short period of time.”