Short answer: yes, and on most residential lots you can now have three or four dwelling units total. One carriage house per parcel, up to 8.0 m tall, capped at 110 m² (about 1,180 sq ft) or 75% of the main house, whichever is smaller. Most zones have no minimum lot size. The permit takes four to ten weeks. Fees run about $20,000 on top of construction, and less if you qualify for the city’s $7,500 Grow a Suite grant.
Now the part that decides whether you build one: your water and sewer service, not the zoning bylaw.
Can you build a carriage house in West Kelowna?
Carriage houses (carriage homes, same thing) are permitted as a secondary use in most residential zones: RC1, RC2, RC3, R1, R1L and RP1.
The density rule is the same almost everywhere: one carriage house per parcel. You don’t get two, and you can’t call the second one a shop with a bathroom.
How many units you can actually put on a West Kelowna lot now
Under Bill 44, brought into West Kelowna’s zoning bylaw on May 21, 2024, the city allows up to three units on lots under 280 m² and up to four on lots over 280 m².
The combinations include a house with a secondary suite and a carriage house (three units), and that same setup where the carriage house has its own suite (four units).
Read that again, because it’s the option most people miss: the carriage house can contain a suite. That’s your fourth door.
The city is blunt about the catch, and so am I: not every form is permitted on every lot. Zoning, parcel shape and servicing all knock options off the table. The bylaw says four; your lot might say two.
How big can a West Kelowna carriage house be?
The spec, from the bylaw and the city’s bulletin:
- Height: 8.0 m (26.2 ft), or 7.0 m in A1 zones. Note the tiers: 11.0 m and three storeys for your principal dwelling, 5.0 m for an ordinary accessory building, and a carriage house on its own rung at 8.0 m. Two storeys over a garage, no variance needed.
- Floor area: 110 m² (1,184 sq ft) or 75% of the principal dwelling, whichever is less, in RC1, RC2, RC3, R1, R1L and RP1. In rural and acreage zones it’s 140 m² (1,507 sq ft) or 75%.
- Minimum parcel size: none in most zones (RC2, RC3, R1, R1L, RP1 and the rural zones). RC1 is the exception at 650 m².
- Separation: 3.0 m (9.8 ft) minimum between the carriage house and the house.
- Parking: one space for a one-bedroom, two for two bedrooms or more, reduced to 1.5 in RC2 and RP1. Each stall is 2.75 m by 6.0 m, inside your property lines.
- Parcel coverage: 50% in R1, counting house, garage and carriage house together.
- Its own exterior entrance, not routed through the garage. And it has to be accessory to an existing principal dwelling, so you can’t build the carriage house first.
That 75% rule bites more often than the 110 m² does. If your main house is 1,400 sq ft, your carriage house caps out at 1,050, not 1,180. Check the ratio before you settle on a plan.
And the parking takes real room. A two-bedroom carriage house means two more stalls, each 9 by 20 feet, on a lot that already has a house and a driveway. On a tight lot, that requirement can kill a layout faster than the floor area cap. Draw the stalls before you draw the building.
And before you use any of this: these are West Kelowna’s numbers. Kelowna’s are different. The height, floor area and parking rules all change. Reading Kelowna’s page and assuming it carries across the bridge is how people design to the wrong rules.
What changed in June 2026
Council passed an infill housing bylaw on June 23, 2026. Two things matter here.
Secondary suites got bigger, from 100 m² to 110 m², and the “subordinate appearance” entrance rule is gone. A suite inside your carriage house can now have a proper front door.
The carriage house screening change did not pass. Staff proposed dropping the screening restrictions on rooftop patios and decks over 0.6 m. Residents and Councillor Rick de Jong raised privacy concerns at the hearing, and it was struck. If your design overlooks the neighbour’s yard, screening still applies, so design for it now.
The thing that actually kills carriage house projects
It isn’t zoning. It’s servicing.
The city notes that off-site utility upgrades may apply depending on what you build. On an older lot, adding a second or third dwelling can trigger a water service upgrade, a sewer upgrade, or both. That work happens in the road: restoration, traffic control, and a bill that has nothing to do with the building you wanted.
So before you spend a dollar on drawings, ask what size the existing water service is and whether the city wants it upgraded for your unit count. That one answer can move your budget by five figures.
You also need community water and sewer, with a narrow septic exception on parcels of a hectare or more. And every carriage house needs approval, including one for your parents. “It’s for family” isn’t a category the bylaw recognizes.
Budget four to ten weeks for the permit, which is the city’s own published range. Complete applications are the ones that land at the short end.
What it actually costs, fees included
Plan on about $325 to $450 per square foot for a carriage house. That’s less per foot than a custom home, which runs higher. Our 2026 pricing guide puts a finished carriage home at $325,000 to $450,000 before GST. Where you land depends on size, whether there’s a garage underneath, site access, and how far the services have to run.
Then the fees, which almost nobody budgets for. Figure another $20,000 to $22,000 in a serviced neighbourhood:
- Building permit: 1.14% of construction value ($11.40 per $1,000), plus a non-refundable application fee from $150. On a $400,000 build, that’s about $4,600.
- City development cost charges: about $70 per m² of floor area, or roughly $7,700 on a 110 m² building. Council held DCC rates flat for 2026, with a bigger rewrite expected in 2027.
- Regional District DCCs, which catch people completely: $2,584 for East Trunk sewer and $4,608 for the treatment plant, where they apply. That’s over $7,000 that isn’t the City’s money and won’t show on a City permit estimate.
- The small stuff: water meter around $720, sanitary connection under $100, plumbing at $10 per fixture, highway permit $75.
If you find the city’s bulletin, its worked example lands at about $17,000. But it assumes a $90,000 construction value, and nobody has built a carriage house for that in years. The DCC side still holds. The permit fee is several times what it shows.
Then take up to $7,500 of it back
West Kelowna’s Grow a Suite grant covers building a new carriage home. It pays 25% of construction costs or $7,500, whichever is less (on any real carriage house, that’s $7,500), and waives the building permit application fee of $150 to $500. If you qualify, that takes the fee bill down to roughly $12,000 to $14,500.
The fine print matters:
- Your existing house has to have been built in 2024 or earlier, with no legal suite or carriage home already on the lot.
- You sign a declaration that the new unit won’t be used as a short-term rental, or decommissioned, for at least three years.
- It’s paid as a credit on your property tax account after the final inspection, so you still pay the fees up front.
- It’s first come, first served, open until December 31, 2027 or until the funding runs out. Confirm eligibility with the city’s building department before you count on it.
That’s the timing point. Right now a carriage house in West Kelowna costs less to permit than it will once that money is gone.
On the income side, West Kelowna apartment averages run about $1,545 for a one-bedroom and $1,857 for a two-bedroom. A new detached building with its own entrance and yard rents above that, so pull real comparables before you build a pro forma. And if you take the grant, plan on long-term tenants for at least three years.
Before you draw anything
In this order: confirm your zone, your servicing capacity, your fees and grant eligibility, and where the parking stalls go. Then hire a designer. Doing it backwards is how people end up paying for drawings of a building the lot won’t take.
I’m a Red Seal carpenter and a custom home builder in West Kelowna, and I’m on site for the critical work. On a carriage house that matters, because the building goes up fast, three metres from the house you live in. You get a fixed price contract, a guaranteed move-in date, and 24/7 online updates with daily logs and photos, so you know exactly what happened on site even when you’re not there.
Got a West Kelowna lot and wondering whether a carriage house pencils? Send me the lot size and address and I’ll tell you straight what you can build there, including whether you qualify for the grant and whether the servicing makes it a bad idea. No charge, and no pitch if the answer’s no.