BC announces province-wide Small-Scale Multi-Unit policy

Three, four, or six units by right on a single residential lot

Press release

Technical briefing slides

This afternoon BC announced a long-awaited "Small-Scale Multi-Unit" policy, allowing for three, four, or six units by right on a single residential lot where currently only single-family or duplex is allowed.

• Three units by right

• Four units on a lot of 280 square metres (about 3000 square feet) or greater

• Six units within 400 m of frequent transit

• No minimum parking within 400 m of frequent transit (should be a considerable cost savings)

There's a policy manual expected next month which will specify site coverage, height, and setbacks. (Maybe something like 50% site coverage and three storeys, or 1.5 FSR? That would make a lot more projects economically viable. The city of Vancouver's floor space limit is 1.0 FSR.) There's an estimate that this will result in 130,000 more homes across BC in 10 years - I think this is from Jens von Bergmann.

Caveats:

• Doesn't apply to the city of Vancouver (where the shortage is worst) or to Victoria, since they've already brought in their own missing-middle programs. BC's going to be encouraging them to apply the policy manual to their missing-middle programs.

• Municipal governments have until June 30, 2024 to update their bylaws.

• There's a further transit-oriented development announcement expected in the next couple weeks. (Maybe six storeys by right within 800 m of rapid transit?)

Competition with low- and mid-rise apartments

The city of Vancouver’s limited multiplex policy was somewhat frustrating. The city appeared to be trying to carefully calibrate policy to hit a precise target:

• Not too easy and attractive, so that land values for residential lots don't go up, which would make land assembly for four- to six-storey apartment buildings more difficult

• Not too difficult and unattractive, because that would result in low takeup, or zero takeup (as happened in Victoria)

This seems impossible, just as it's impossible to be right on time for an appointment - either you're early or you're late.

What I'd really like to see is the city making it easy and attractive to build both multiplexes and low- and mid-rise apartment buildings (similar to the approval process for single-detached houses today), with apartment buildings winning out if they're both competing for land.

You'd fully expect land values to go up somewhat, accelerating redevelopment of old single-detached houses. If necessary, density bonus fees can be used as a brake pedal, but given near-zero vacancy rates and painfully high rents (needed to drive people out of the city), what I'd really like to see is more urgency and speed, with the city accepting lower density bonus fees and allowing more housing to be built.

With the provincial policy making it attractive to build multiplexes, it’ll be important for municipalities like Vancouver to make it similarly attractive to build low- and mid-rise apartment buildings. We need high-rises to make efficient use of land where land prices are particularly high, for example near SkyTrain stations, but the big advantage of low- and mid-rise projects is that they’re much faster to plan and build, and can be built by smaller builders.

More

• BC government overrides cities to allow up to six homes on single-family lots. Kenneth Chan, Daily Hive.

• New legislation aims to create more small-scale and multi-unit housing in B.C. Karin Larsen, CBC News.

• B.C. legislation would legalize small-scale multi-family homes provincewide. Simon Little, Global News.

• B.C. introduces legislation to spur small-scale multi-unit home construction. Carla Wilson, Business in Vancouver.

• B.C. introduces housing law to require small-scale and multi-unit zoning. Brenna Owen, Canadian Press.