City council will decide the fate of caretaker facilities next week.

In a presentation to council at Monday night's meeting, Brian Crist, the city's acting director of operations, presented a list of changes to the current Staff Accommodation/Caretaker Facilities bylaw.

'The administrative recommendation is that bylaw (the caretaker bylaw) ... be brought forward for due consideration of second and third reading under the bylaw process,' Crist said.

If the proposed bylaw passes third reading next week, it would be adopted and become municipal law.

In his presentation, Crist listed four changes to the existing bylaw. They include:

• renaming staff accommodation/caretaker facilities to caretaker residence;

• changing the definition of caretaker residence to specify that the owner of the business may be the resident; and

• changing the definition of 'floor area, gross' to mean 'the sum of the horizontal areas of each story of the building measured from the exterior faces of the exterior walls.

Crist also listed a new section to the caretaker bylaw which included ensuring a residence on industrial property only be built at the same time or after the businesses facilities have been built; clearing 75 per cent of the industrial property of vegetation; and ensuring a caretaker facility not be bigger than the size of the business and that it doesn't exceed 3,200 square feet.

The caretaker facilities bylaw became a hot button issue last summer when planning manager Lesley Cabbot recommended to council that the bylaw be scrapped.

Cabott told council she felt the bylaw was confusing as it was meant to allow for caretaker facilities, not permanent residences on industrial land.

Following an outcry from concerned industrial residents, council deferred a decision on the matter and struck a committee to research the issue.

Under the current bylaw, caretaker facilities may be permitted where the nature of the business requires 24-hour supervision and a resident caretaker is in the public interest.

Currently, staff accommodations are defined as: a building, or a portion of a building, used to provide onsite accommodation by the employer for persons employed on the property, or a residence for the site caretaker.

Such accommodations are permitted in areas zoned Highway Commercial, Service Industrial, Heavy Industrial, Quarry, Public Service, Public Utilities and Parks and Recreation.