C7: Service Commercial

What the zone allows

Homes allowed

One security or operator home; live-work units

Main uses

Vehicle sales, rentals, repair, body and paint shops; truck and motorhome sales and service; recreation equipment sales and rentals; building and garden supply, garden centre; contractor services; fleet service; self-storage, storage and warehouse, wholesale; custom indoor manufacturing, artisan crafts, craft brewery or distillery, bakery; shops, grocery store, restaurant, offices, call centre, health and personal services, high-tech and business support services, commercial school, assembly, indoor amusement, funeral service, animal clinic and day care, household repair, government service with works yard, recycling drop-off, major day care; live-work unit, one security or operator home

Smallest lot for a subdivision

650 m², 20 m wide

Lot coverage

50%

Height limit

12 m

Setbacks

Front 4.5 m; interior side "0 m and 4.5 m" as printed, 6 m next to a residential, public or institutional zone; exterior side 4.5 m; rear 0 m (7.5 m next to a residential, public or institutional zone)

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.

Truck and motorhome dealers may host RVs overnight for up to 3 nights (s. 11.7.3).

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. 11.7.3.2).

Tourist accommodation is also allowed at 998 Creston Avenue (Lots 1 to 16, Plan KAS1384), 1473 and 1485 Main Street, 1706 and 1742 Main Street, and 2307, 2387 and 2406 Skaha Lake Road (s. 11.7.4).

At 1706 Main Street (Lot A, DLs 1997S and 3237S, Plan EPP75769): homes, congregate housing, transitional housing and an emergency shelter (s. 11.7.4).

Other site-specific uses (s. 11.7.4): a hair salon at 126 to 197 Warren Avenue East (Lot 10, DL 1997S, Plan KAS1732); public parking and storage and warehousing at 645 Wade Avenue West (Lot 2, DL 2, Plan EPP82665); a cannabis store at 1652 Fairview Road (Lot 15, DL 5, Plan 28077).

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.

A security or operator home houses the site's caretaker, operator or staff and has at most 100 m² of floor area (ss. 3.2, 8.5); one space of parking (Table 6.6).

Short-term rental (stays of 90 days or less, s. 3.2) isn't a listed use in this zone, and a use a zone doesn't list isn't allowed (s. 1.9.2).

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.