Well I spent some time writing for the Vancouver Observer, which I thoroughly enjoyed but its time to get my blog back to current.
I also run a wordpress blog called Real estate and beyond. So its busy! 
Nov 18th west Van council will vote in ( yes i hope they do) draft bylaws for the Coach house policy. Then it will go back to Public consultation. I have been actively involved in this housing form and this is what i believe it will look like for West Vancouver- this is my best guess.
1. Max size will be 1000 sq ft, possibly 1200 but unlikely
2. This will come out of over all square footage of lot, if you already built a new home as big as you can- Sorry you are out of luck
3. Design review.Dear God lets hope they let the professionals do this and not have neighborhood input. Notification yes, its fine to have to let the neighbors know but to get there approval? They didnt need any approval to rip down a small cottage and put up a 7000 sq ft monster so why should a little carriage house have a veto option? So there will be a planning review of staff and a mandatory neighborhood notification
4.Dont need a lane. We have massive properties that could take a back cottage, a lane not required.
5. Distrance between homes, this will be interesting and I cant even speculate if they will adopt Vancouver system of 16 ft or not.

Stay tuned, I just hope they can speed this up as the rate we are losing the little cottages full of history and soul is very discouraging. Soon it will be all vacant, cold square marble boxes with gothic pillars that have no place being here on the West Coast.