Proper Zoning

[Marek2086]

Just wondering how many of you have properties zoned as a single family house or a duplex but are used as a triplex or fourplex. Is this a big deal. I heard a statistic that 70% of all houses are not zoned properly.

I am looking a great property it`s a fourplex but I know it`s only zoned as a duplex. How big of a deal is it. I would obviously retrofit the property to provincial standards. It that enough.

thanks

 

[3Girls]

I live in Saskatoon - we have 3 such buildings 4plexes zoned as duplexes. Major rent shortage here so the only time it it an issue is if it checked by police or administration for some other reason. It would be an
unmanageable housing situation here if they ever tried to shut down this type of housing.

Maurice

 

[terri]

QUOTE (marek5 @ Jan 25 2008, 02:02 PM) Just wondering how many of you have properties zoned as a single family house or a duplex but are used as a triplex or fourplex. Is this a big deal. I heard a statistic that 70% of all houses are not zoned properly.

I am looking a great property it`s a fourplex but I know it`s only zoned as a duplex. How big of a deal is it. I would obviously retrofit the property to provincial standards. It that enough.

thanks


don`t know where the property is, but the Ontario building code requirement is very different for a 4 plex as opposed to a duplex, so the cost of legally convert it may not make the deal worthwhile, it`s not just a matter of retrofitting, you would need to conform to all the current building code standards for a multiunit dwelling, including more stringent fire separation, exits, fire suppression, and detection and your property tax will go up a lot.

as well you would have to look into the zoning to see if the area is even zoned for multiunit, you may not be able to get permission to have more than 2 units in the building. I always check out the zoning right away.

yes, there are a lot of properties around with additional illegal units, but...If the city were to find out they would be required to make you remove 2 kitchens. You need to determine if there is a way to make the property cash flow in the case that it had to be converted back to a duplex.

I saw a property come up for sale recently that had been illegally converted into 4 apts over 20 yrs ago and 3 kitchens recently had to be removed because the city found out it was an illegal mutiunit and the area was only zoned for maximum 2 units.

So when you do your due diligence ask yourself: does the property still work $$$ if it were converted back to a duplex?

Terri

 

[Thomas Beyer]

don`t confuse RENTING with SELLING !

so, if you have a duplex, you can often easily rent up and down on each side .. i.e. 4 income streams !

BUT: if you wish to sell one unit, you can sell only one half, not one quarter !

You have to apply for a re-zoning, wich sometimes gets granted by the city, but NOT usually !

You can alwyas phone the planning department and just ASK ! .. they may say: yes !

 

[StevenRoorda]

Marek,

We had a very similar situation with a fourplex that was listed as a duplex. As stated earlier, the difficulties can arise if the City finds out. In our case, the tenants were not happy with each other, leading to a number of interpersonal issues. Some of these got out of hand and the fire department was called in - I think the neighbour was not very happy and called them to try and shut the situation down. Anyway, the fire department came in and gave a list of infractions that we had to satisfy to get the house up to code for the fourplex. It ended up that it was cheaper to convert to a duplex and we could still cashflow. To convert to a fourplex would have cost many tens of thousands of dollars more than we could afford and still make it profitable.

Furthermore, the city had a moratorium on converting (rezoning) any houses in the neighbourhood and would make it impossible to get the fourplex designation.

Years could have gone by without an issue, but is so happened that we were obligated to do something about the property much sooner than we anticipated. Ours worked out for the best, but could have easily turned out much worse. Your due diligence becomes very important in these cases.

Steve