C3: Mixed Use Commercial

What the zone allows

Homes allowed

Homes in the same building as a commercial use, up to 2.0 FAR on the lot; congregate housing; live-work units

Main uses

Offices, shops, grocery store, restaurants, personal and health services, assembly, commercial school, funeral service, indoor recreation, indoor animal day care and grooming, high-tech and business support services, artisan crafts, recycling drop-off, government service with outdoor storage and works yard, major day care, congregate housing, homes, live-work units; minor home occupation, short-term rental

Smallest lot for a subdivision

1,000 m², 18 m wide

Lot coverage

50%

Height limit

18 m

Setbacks

Front 3 m, sides 4.5 m, rear 6 m

Floor area ratio (FAR) is net floor area divided by lot area (s. 3.2); land given up for a road still counts in it and in coverage (s. 4.6.4).

A home must be in the same building as a commercial use (s. 11.3.3).

Amenity space: 10 m² per home, at most a fifth of it indoors (s. 11.3.3).

On lots in the Transitional Neighbourhood Overlay on the zoning map (Schedule B), the owner may develop under this zone's rules or the R4-S zone's, but not mix the two on one lot (s. 11.3.3.4).

The zone's use list points minor home occupations to s. 8.4, which covers flex units: a numbering slip, as s. 7.3, the section on minor home occupations, applies wherever the use is allowed (s. 7.1.1).

At 1070 Lakeshore Drive West (Lot 4, DL 3, Plan 8666 except Plan KAP71490): recreation equipment sales and rentals, scooters up to 50 cc and other motorized vehicles included, and a bed and breakfast inn in a building with more than one home (s. 11.3.4).

At 697 Wade Avenue West (Lot 1, DL 2, Plan EPP82665): public parking and storage and warehousing (s. 11.3.4).

Live-work units (s. 7.8): a home combined with one of the zone's commercial uses, run by someone who lives there; at ground level the business takes at least a third of the frontage; nothing stored that the fire or building code bars from a home.

Minor home occupations (s. 7.3): in the home, a suite, carriage house or accessory building; residents only; up to 25% of the home's floor area and 20 m²; one client visit and one commercial vehicle visit (8 am to 6 pm) a day; no outdoor storage or work; no vehicle repair, welding, cabinet making, manufacturing and similar uses.

Short-term rental is a permitted use. The bylaw counts any stay of 90 days or less as short-term (s. 3.2), and requires a City business licence; only the property's principal resident may rent it out; at most two guests per bedroom and eight in all; no alterations that change the home's residential look; on a lot with a house and a secondary suite or carriage house, only one of the homes may be rented this way (ss. 3.2, 7.6).

Parking (Table 6.6): 1 space per home in a commercial building; shops, restaurants and most other commercial uses 1 per 50 m² of net floor area (offices, grocery stores, health and personal services 1 per 30 m²); tourist accommodation 1 per room.

Parking may be paid for in cash instead (s. 6.1.2).

Metal storage containers only during construction under a building permit (s. 4.8.4).

Transit-oriented areas (Schedules C to E, around the bus exchanges at Penticton Plaza, Peachtree Square and Cherry Lane Mall; Area 1 within 200 m, Area 2 200 to 400 m, s. 3.2): residential buildings, and mixed-use ones at least half residential, need no parking for homes and may reach 6 storeys and 2.5 FAR in Area 1 or 4 storeys and 1.5 FAR in Area 2, or the zone's own figures where higher (s. 4.16).

Accessory buildings go up only with or after the main building, stand behind its front face (those of 10 m² or less anywhere behind it), and can't be lived in except as a carriage house where allowed (ss. 4.2.1 to 4.2.4).

Fences and walls up to 1.2 m, or 1.8 m behind the front yard setback and in side and rear yards, or 2.4 m beside a controlled-access highway; nothing over 1.2 m in a corner visibility triangle; no barbed, electric or razor wire (ss. 4.3, 5.4.1). Retaining walls 1.2 m in required yards, 2.4 m elsewhere (s. 5.4.2).

Landscape buffers, for commercial uses and for housing of 5 or more homes: 3 m wide beside R4-L and R4-S lots and along highways other than lanes, with a visual screen at least 1.2 m high beside residential zones (Table 5.1); waste bins screened (s. 4.10).

No development within 30 m of a watercourse, or the smaller distance a Qualified Environmental Professional sets under the Riparian Areas Protection Regulation and the official community plan's development permit areas (s. 4.14).

No building inside an existing or future collector or arterial road right-of-way shown in the official community plan; setbacks from those roads are measured from the future road line (s. 4.6).

Nothing, cranes included, may rise above the Horizontal Surface of the federal Penticton Airport Zoning Regulations without federal approval (s. 4.5).

Every zone also allows public parks, utility services, urban agriculture, cultural exhibits and a minor day care (up to 8 children) (s. 4.12).

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 Penticton's planning department before you buy or build.

Source: City of Penticton Zoning Bylaw No. 2024-22 (summarised in our words); zone map: Open Government Licence – City of Penticton.