Glenmore's winding hillside streets carry some of the larger lots inside Kelowna city limits — enough room, on many properties, to consider a carriage house without crowding the existing house.
Written by Serge, Founder, Kelowna Carriage Homes
Glenmore sits in the hills north of downtown Kelowna, an established area of winding streets and generally larger lots than you'll find downtown or in Lower Mission, with terrain that ranges from gentle to genuinely steep the further north and west you go. Older Glenmore streets carry homes built from the 1960s through the 1990s on lots with real yard space; newer development in North Glenmore, including the master-planned Wilden community on the upper hillside, has added higher-density and view-oriented homes to the area over the past two decades.
That range — established larger lots alongside newer, sometimes smaller hillside parcels — means Glenmore does not have a single typical lot the way a more uniform subdivision would.
On the area's larger, established lots, a detached carriage house is often a realistic option: there is generally more room to meet the 90-square-metre cap and 14% site coverage limit without crowding the driveway or the existing yard than on a standard downtown or Lower Mission lot. On smaller or steeper newer-development parcels, particularly in parts of North Glenmore and Wilden with tighter subdivision lots or real slope, a secondary suite inside the house may be the more practical first option — the same slope-and-space trade-off that applies on Dilworth Mountain applies here on the steeper Glenmore streets.
Glenmore sits inside Kelowna city limits and is governed by Zoning Bylaw No. 12375: a detached carriage house capped at 90 square metres (about 970 square feet), limited to one per lot and not stratifiable, with accessory buildings capped at roughly 14% site coverage and a minimum one additional parking stall at 2.75 by 6.0 metres. The city's carriage houses and secondary suites page has the current detail, and because Glenmore spans several different RU zones from older subdivisions to newer hillside development, we confirm the specific zone on your parcel before proposing a layout.
The province's Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing legislation, effective since November 30, 2023, applies here as it does citywide, generally raising the number of units a single-family lot can support beyond what older zoning alone allowed.
A turnkey carriage home costs $350,000 to $550,000, and a secondary suite conversion runs $60,000 to $150,000. Design and permitting typically take 3 to 5 months, construction another 5 to 8 months, with a 4-to-6-week review window for a clean application. On steeper Glenmore lots, budget for the same kind of site-work premium we flag for Dilworth Mountain — it depends on the specific grade, and we confirm it before quoting a number.
Financing options are the same regional tools: the BC $40,000 Secondary Suite Incentive Program closed to new applications on March 30, 2025; the proposed federal $80,000 loan was not carried into the 2025 federal budget; and CMHC-insured refinancing up to 90% of home value (under $2,000,000) for suite financing has been available since January 15, 2025, alongside a CleanBC heat pump rebate of up to about $5,500.
Kelowna renters paid an average of $2,118 a month for a two-bedroom and $1,596 for a one-bedroom in 2025 (CMHC), with vacancy up to 6.4% from 3.8%. Glenmore's quieter, established character and easy access to the Rail Trail and Knox Mountain Park are the kind of thing a rental listing highlights, but we still ground rent expectations in comparable listings, not neighbourhood reputation alone.
A detached one- or two-bedroom home in the back yard, on the same title.
Learn more →Legalize and finish space you already own.
Learn more →What your specific parcel is zoned for, and what it allows.
Learn more →Grants, rebates, and refinancing options, current as of 2026.
Learn more →Glenmore's sloped neighbour to the south, near Dilworth Mountain.
Learn more →A smaller hillside pocket above Glenmore.
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Costs, timelines, rents, and incentive amounts on this page are estimates from the sources cited, current as of September 2026. Each is confirmed in writing in your free feasibility study. Licensed and insured; documentation available on request.