We have a relatively modest cabin with a secondary suite in Alpine and have been trying to get a simple renovation done: we are trying to put a roof over our deck. In the process we became aware of a huge benefit unique to cabin/single-family homeowners in Whistler: car garages are exempt from their buildable gross floor area. This means cabins and houses in Whistler can be made substantially bigger to house cars. Think about how big a double or triple garage can be. In contrast, areas that can only store bikes and e-bikes do not benefit from an exemption. Even secondary suites to house people don’t measure up to the status cars have!
We share our storage area with our tenants and in the summer and shoulder seasons, the majority of trips from our household are on bike or foot. How much space do our bikes take up? Between all of us, there are normally two e-bikes and four regular bikes in our storage area. When we have guests, that number can easily swell to 10 or more. Ten bikes take up a fair amount of space!
We’ve made the Resort Municipality of Whistler aware of the car bias in the zoning bylaw of its inconsistency with the top priority of the “Big Moves” climate action strategy: “Move Beyond the Car.” We even provided a simple, draft change to the zoning bylaw that would level the playing field without providing additional benefits associated uniquely with cars. Staff at the muni were sympathetic, but it’s completely unclear if and when any change might happen. Years at best, it seems.
Separately, just after we pointed out the discrepancy to the municipality, the “Big Moves” web pages were demoted from the highest visibility location at whistler.ca (top left) to under “Visiting Whistler.” Was the “Big Moves” strategy just marketing all along?
