West Kelowna runs its own zoning bylaw, and it caps a secondary suite by percentage of the main house rather than by a flat square-footage number — a different rule than Kelowna's, worth getting right before you plan a budget.
Written by Serge, Founder, Kelowna Carriage Homes
The City of West Kelowna — Westbank, Lakeview Heights, Glenrosa, Rose Valley, Smith Creek — incorporated in 2007 and administers its own planning department and zoning bylaw, independent of the City of Kelowna across the bridge. That distinction is not just administrative trivia: it means the 90-square-metre carriage house cap and Bylaw No. 12375 that apply in Kelowna do not apply here. West Kelowna's rules, set out in Zoning Bylaw No. 0265, are structured differently.
Terrain here is largely hillside and bench land above the lake — Lakeview Heights and the Bartley Road / Boucherie Road benches carry vineyard and orchard-adjacent lots with real slope, while Glenrosa and Smith Creek run more conventional subdivision lots on gentler grades further from the water.
Under Bylaw No. 0265, a secondary suite in West Kelowna cannot exceed 40% of the principal dwelling's floor area, with a hard maximum secondary suite size of 1,184 square feet regardless of how large the main house is. For a carriage house — a detached structure — the bylaw permits only one per parcel. In practice, the 40%-of-house rule means the suite you can build scales with the size of your existing home: a larger house on a hillside lot in Lakeview Heights supports a larger suite than a smaller starter home in Glenrosa, up to that 1,184-square-foot ceiling either way.
This is a meaningfully different calculation than Kelowna's flat 90-square-metre (970-square-foot) cap, and it is a common point of confusion for anyone who has researched Kelowna's rules first and assumes they carry over. They do not.
West Kelowna, like every mid-sized BC municipality, is subject to the province's Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing legislation, in effect since November 30, 2023, which requires more units to be permitted on lots that were previously zoned for a single detached house. That provincial floor sits alongside — not instead of — West Kelowna's own 40%/1,184-square-foot suite rule and one-carriage-house-per-parcel limit, both set out in Bylaw No. 0265.
Because hillside and bench lots here often carry slope, retaining walls, or view-corridor considerations that a flat city lot in Kelowna would not, we treat a site visit or detailed elevation review as standard practice for a West Kelowna project, not an upsell.
Construction costs follow the same regional figures used across the Central Okanagan: $350,000 to $550,000 turnkey for a carriage home, and $60,000 to $150,000 for a secondary suite conversion, though hillside lots with grade challenges can push toward the higher end of either range once retaining and site work are factored in. Expect 3 to 5 months for design and permitting and 5 to 8 months of construction once permits are issued.
On financing: the province's $40,000 Secondary Suite Incentive Program closed to new applicants on March 30, 2025. A federal $80,000 secondary-suite loan proposed in December 2024 was not carried forward in the 2025 federal budget. What remains available is CMHC-insured mortgage refinancing up to 90% of home value (properties valued under $2,000,000) for funding a secondary suite, available since January 15, 2025, and a CleanBC heat pump rebate worth up to roughly $5,500.
CMHC's rent figures are reported at the Kelowna census-metropolitan-area level, which includes West Kelowna: an average of $2,118 a month for a two-bedroom and $1,596 for a one-bedroom in 2025, with vacancy up 6.4% from 3.8% a year earlier. A hillside suite with a view and dedicated parking is a real selling point in this market; it is not, on its own, a reason to expect above-average rent without comparable listings to support it.
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 →Inside Kelowna city limits, under Kelowna's bylaw — not the same as West Kelowna.
Learn more →Another separate municipality, with its own suite rules and an annual licence fee.
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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.