RM4: High Density Multiple Housing

What the zone allows

Homes allowed

Apartments up to 2.0 FAR, with ground-floor townhouse units along a street allowed; congregate housing and extended care

Main uses

Apartments, congregate housing, extended care residence, major day care; minor home occupation, short-term rental

Smallest lot for a subdivision

2,000 m², 30 m wide

Lot coverage

75%; hard surfaces, buildings included, 85%

Height limit

27 m (8 storeys per the zone's purpose)

Setbacks

Front 3 m (9 m on Lakeshore Drive West); interior sides 4.5 m; exterior side 6 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).

Hard surfaces (buildings, parking, driveways, walks and patios together) cover at most 85% of the lot (s. 10.6.4).

Amenity space: 10 m² per home and at most a fifth of it indoors (s. 10.6.3).

The zone doesn't list secondary suites.

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 100 and 160 Lakeshore Drive West and 75 Martin Street (Strata Plan KAS2716): 46 m height, front 6 m, rear 9 m (s. 10.6.5).

At 2113 and 2125 Atkinson Street (Strata Plan KAS3830): 30.5 m height (accessory buildings 5 m); main buildings 7.6 m from Atkinson Street, Warren Avenue and the west and south side lines, accessory buildings 4.2 m from Atkinson Street, 6.1 m from Warren Avenue and 5 m from those side lines, an accessory building with residents' common facilities included (the clause cites a s. 10.11.5.2, a numbering slip for these setbacks); parking 1 space per bachelor home, 1.5 per one- or two-bedroom home and 2 per larger home, up to 25% of it small-car spaces (s. 10.6.5).

How far those two site-specific clauses reach: s. 10.6.5 says they apply instead of the zone's uses and regulations but lists only height, setbacks and parking, so whether the zone's uses and other rules still apply there is unclear; ask the City of Penticton.

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 house or duplex unit; 1 per apartment, townhouse or cluster home plus 0.2 for visitors; none for a secondary suite or carriage house; 0.5 per non-market home.

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

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).

Living in an RV on a lot is limited to 10 days in any 30 (s. 4.8.2).

One recreational vehicle may be parked outside per home, more only inside a building, and no vehicle over 5,600 kg unless it is enclosed (s. 6.1.1).

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

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.