C4: General Commercial

What the zone allows

Homes allowed

Homes on the second storey or higher

Main uses

Shopping centres and large stores, grocery store, restaurants, liquor primary premises, cannabis store, offices, financial, health and personal services, high-tech and business support services, artisan crafts, animal clinic, bakery, funeral service, government service, commercial school, assembly, indoor amusement and recreation, indoor animal day care and grooming, household repair, on-site beer and wine making, outdoor markets, public parking, tourist accommodation, recycling drop-off, major day care, homes above the ground floor; minor home occupation, short-term rental

Smallest lot for a subdivision

1,000 m², 18 m wide

Lot coverage

50%

Height limit

13 m

Setbacks

Front 3 m; interior side "0 m and 4.5 m" as printed, 6 m next to a residential or institutional zone; exterior side 4.5 m; rear 3 m (6 m next to a residential or institutional zone, or a lane beside one)

Density up to 1.0 FAR (s. 11.4.2).

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).

The interior side setback is printed as "0 m and 4.5 m" without saying which figure applies where, so how close a building may come to each side line is unclear; ask the City of Penticton.

Restaurant patios without permanent roofs, fenced or hedged 1 to 1.3 m high, may sit in the front and side yards (s. 11.4.3).

Temporary uses such as vehicle sales, carnivals and tent sales up to 10 days in a row in any six months; outdoor markets up to 4 days a month (s. 11.4.3).

Amenity space: 5 m² per home, at most a fifth of it indoors (s. 11.4.3).

Site-specific (s. 11.4.4): homes on the main floor at 1027 Westminster Avenue West (Strata Lot 1, DL 366, Plan KAS1711); vehicle and equipment repair at 2111 Main Street (Lot 1, DLs 115 and 116, Plan 53757); at 2210 Main Street and 98 Warren Avenue East (Lot C, DL 251, Plan KAP80315; Lot 1, DL 251, Plan EPP84085) ground-floor homes and a 20 m height limit.

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: two on the first 0.2 ha of lot plus two for each further 0.2 ha, five at most, sited like buildings, never between the building and a street other than a lane, off parking, aisles and fire lanes, holding only the business's own goods (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.