White Rock council has given final adoption to a zoning amendment aimed at barring any repeats of the Yearsley decision – in which owners of a bed and breakfast on the city’s hillside went to B.C. Supreme Court to win a permit for a six-storey building on the site.

By changing the way heights are measured in commercial zones adjacent to the city’s waterfront – many of them on deeply sloping hillside terrain – the amendment to White Rock’s zoning bylaw, passed last week, will limit most developments in these areas to three storeys.

The change would not affect the development permit given to Bob and Jacqueline Yearsley, owners of Sausalito Bed and Breakfast, for their property at 14955 Victoria Ave.

That permit was required by a May Supreme Court ruling that overturned an earlier council development permit decision.

However, development services director Paul Stanton said there is “a two-year sunset clause on that.”

“If nothing were done in that time, then they would have to come back for a new application,” Stanton told Peace Arch News.

Had the amendment been in place at the time of the original Yearsley application, the building on the steeply sloping lot would have been reduced by a storey – but would still have been five storeys high on the street side, according to Stanton, who has called that proposal “anomalous” for the waterfront area.

Under the new amendment, most commercial/residential developments in the zones adjacent to Marine Drive, Victoria Avenue and Oxford and Vidal streets would be limited to 11.3 metres or 37 feet – which would generally limit them to three storeys, with provision for pitched roofs.

First floors for commercial use would have a maximum 10-foot ceiling, while lower residential floors would have a maximum nine-foot ceiling.

The greatest effect of the amendment results from changing the starting point for assessing the height of a building from the “average natural grade” of the property, to the “lowest average natural grade adjacent to the building.”

Under the old system, the average natural grade was calculated from the mid-point of the walls on all four sides of the proposed building. This meant steeply sloping properties received a height boost, since calculating the average natural grade would set the zero point metres higher than the actual lowest point of the property.

Deep lots with steeper grades would have an even greater height bonus.

The amendment also transfers minimum lot width, depth and area requirements from the city’s subdivision bylaw to the zoning bylaw for administrative purposes.