Vancouver considering changes to zoning and development bylaws, allowing multiplexes on single lots

A potential housing bylaw change in Vancouver is looking to make living in the city more attainable.

A referral report is recommending the city make amendments to its zoning and development bylaws.

The change would allow builders to construct multiplexes from previous single properties. It would also allow significantly more space on each lot to be developed, compared to a single property. 

A newly-built detached single family house could only use the equivalent of 60 per cent of a lot’s area, or about 2,400 square feet. However, a multiplex will be permitted to go up to 4,026 square feet on that same lot.

Up to six units could be built on one lot if the changes get approved. It would also allow the creation of larger laneway homes.

Neighbourhood density has been a common concern as larger buildings get constructed in residential areas. It’s is something councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung acknowledges.

"People want to maintain livable communities, that's something that regardless of what type of project is coming forward to us, and similarly concerns about parking, that'll be a big part of what councillors will be listening to,” she said,

Jake Fry, the founder of Small Housing B.C. and CEO of Small Works is hoping councillors will listen to his concerns about cost-effective housing.

"The program as it stands now could really focus on affordability, the options for low market housing are possible,” he said.

“If [The proposal] doesn’t have a wide-spread, wholesale change, like tearing down a whole block of housing and building a five or six storey housing complex would have, this is much more gentle,” he said.

So ‘gentle,’ that Peter Waldkirch, the director of Abundant Housing Vancouver, believes it won’t have enough impact on Vancouver’s dire housing crisis.

"There are many, many people who are looking for homes in this city and there just isn't enough of them,” said Waldkirch. “We need to be drastically increasing the amount of housing we're producing and this policy is just barely a drop in the bucket.” said Waldkirch.

But Fry says a change to laneway homes could provide an option for homeowners.

“That mom and pop who are not ‘developers,’ who are not worried about land speculation, they’re worried about ‘I’m coming close to my retirement I need to extract some capitol, I’m worried about kids, I’m thinking about estate planning’, they’re able to build something on their property,” said Fry.

But that mindset is something realtor David Hutchinson believes won’t be a reality.

"For the average homeowner this is way beyond their capacity to figure this stuff out, let alone go to the city, permit, build it, go to the bank, get the money for the financing,” said Hutchinson, a realtor with Sutton Group Westcoast Realty.

He also questions if or when a strata would become involved.

“All of a sudden you’ve got five immediate neighbours next to you that you’ve just financed to live in or rent or sell, it’s just way too complicated,” he said. ”The developers or the builders are the big winners here.”

The referral report includes many other housing permit changes.

Nine different zoning districts in the city would be simplified into one.

A requirement of a set-rate density bonus payment, a below-market homeownership unit or secured rental housing will be needed to access additional density with a multiplex application.

City council has moved the referral report to the next phase where a public hearing will take place in September.

If approved, councillor Kirby-Yung says the changes could be implemented later in the fall.