R5: Mobile Home Park

What the zone allows

Homes allowed

Mobile homes in a rental park, one per space, up to 55 per hectare

Main uses

Mobile home park; accessory buildings, one park office, home-based business

Smallest lot for a subdivision

2,500 m², 50 m wide and deep; spaces of 180 m² (single-wide, 9 m wide) or 280 m² (double-wide, 14 m wide)

Lot coverage

70%

Height limit

7.6 m or 1 storey

Setbacks

The park: front 3 m, interior sides 1.2 m, exterior side 3 m, rear 3 m. Each mobile home: 0.9 m from the front of its space, 1.2 m from its interior sides and rear, 1 m from an exterior side, 0.9 m from internal roads and parking, 2.4 m from the next mobile home

Coverage can rise to 85% with permeable driveways or paths on 15% of the lot.

Each mobile home sits on a permanent foundation, is certified to CSA Z240 or A277, is registered with the Manufactured Home Registry and meets Technical Safety BC's standards (s. 7.8.6).

5% of the park is open space.

The bylaw doesn't allow short-term rental (stays under 30 days) in this zone (s. 4.34.1).

Home-based businesses (s. 4.32), with a business licence: up to 40% of the home's floor area (25% with a bed and breakfast), run by people who live there with at most one outside employee, no outside storage, no deliveries by commercial vehicle and at most two clients at a time.

No shipping containers for storage (s. 4.19.4).

An accessory building can't be a home, a suite or a short-term rental (s. 4.16), and goes up only with or after the main building.

Fences and hedges up to 1.25 m between the street and the front of the house and within 3 m of the front lot line, 2 m elsewhere; no barbed wire. A 6 m sight triangle at a corner stays clear above 1.25 m (ss. 4.14, 4.15).

Minimum lot sizes apply to new lots; an existing smaller lot stays lawful (s. 4.6).

Every zone also allows public utilities, electric vehicle charging, and temporary site buildings and containers during construction (s. 4.2).

Floodplain (s. 4.30, Schedule B): land below the Province's 200-year flood level of the Nicola and Coldwater rivers, or less than 1.5 m above any other watercourse, is floodplain. Floors of homes, businesses and storage there sit at least 0.6 m above that level, and fill stays 30 m from the rivers and other watercourses unless a riparian assessment allows it. Setbacks from streams follow provincial and federal rules (s. 4.24).

Site-specific exceptions listed in the bylaw by legal description can add or change uses for one property, and development permit areas, the ALR and building rules apply on top. Confirm with the City of Merritt's planning department before you buy or build.

Source: City of Merritt Zoning Bylaw No. 2284, 2020 (summarised in our words); zone map: Open Government Licence – Thompson-Nicola Regional District.