Guides and How-Tos

Small Housing stock image: ADU

Launched by the Community Planning Collaborative (CPC) in August 2024, the California ADU Plans Gallery is an innovative web application showcasing an array of prefabricated and traditional site-built designs. While tailored to U.S. jurisdictions, this gallery offers valuable insights for Canadian audiences, particularly for municipalities and planners exploring accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as a way to expand housing supply. Examples such as prefabricated designs and statewide pre-approvals can serve as inspiration for Canadian local governments considering ADU implementation in their communities. The site also includes a demo, offering local governments a preview for launching a similar custom tool.

“The California ADU Plans Gallery gives local governments a place to demonstrate what’s possible for their communities while providing a publicly accessible database of prefabricated plans approved for use statewide,” said David Driskell, principal at CPC, in a press release announcing the launch. “Digital tools like the ADU Plans Gallery help local governments assist their residents through the challenging ADU process and expand housing supply in their existing neighborhoods.”

Explore the California ADU Plans Gallery here.

“Throughout the United States, the housing deficit has created an affordability crisis. The underbuilding of new homes following the recession coupled with restrictive policies has led to historically low housing supply–and the high costs that come with it. To highlight the solutions that will address this crisis, Zillow and the Casita Coalition have assembled a playbook of strategies to “Build the Middle” by expanding affordable, middle-scale housing options.”

Our friends at Zillow & the Casita Coalition have published a useful playbook that highlights innovations in the field of gentle density housing, collating them in an actionable framework template.

Download the Playbook.

Our friends at Happy Cities have crafted a one-of-a-kind toolkit designed to enhance social well-being through thoughtful multi-unit housing designs, supporting diverse individuals of all ages, backgrounds, abilities, household sizes, and incomes. As they describe it:

“Over 2023 and 2024, Happy Cities, Hey Neighbour Collective, and researchers from Simon Fraser University worked together with five local municipalities and one First Nation to co-create new policies to encourage sociable multi-unit housing design.

“Building on the learnings from this project—and nearly a decade of prior research—Happy Cities and Hey Neighbour Collective have published a new design toolkit of evidence-based strategies to nurture social wellbeing multi-unit housing. The design principles and actions equip policy makers, planners, designers, and community members to build and advocate for more socially connected, inclusive communities, drawing on long-term research and engagement with residents and housing industry actors—including non-profit housing providers, city planners, architects, and market developers.

“In the face of growing challenges—including an acute housing affordability crisis, extreme weather, social isolation, and an aging population—our social connections are one of the strongest resources we have to chart a more sustainable, resilient path forward.”

Download the Toolkit.

Discover the New Standardized Designs for Gentle Density Homes in B.C.

In September 2024, the Government of British Columbia released a series of free, standardized designs to help facilitate the development of gentle density homes. These designs are versatile, using a “building blocks” approach that allows for customization. You can mix and match elements to add features like garages or additional bedrooms and stack up to three storeys high. The collection includes a range of options from duplexes and triplexes to quadplexes and townhouses, with various roof shapes and exterior finishes to blend seamlessly into existing neighborhoods. There are also designs for accessory dwelling units, like laneway homes, and adaptable cottages perfect for aging in place.

All designs comply with the 2024 B.C. Building Code and can be tailored to fit different lot sizes and site conditions across the province. The design files are available for free download and have been compiled into a convenient catalogue for easy browsing.

These standardized designs are expected to save time and reduce costs for local governments and builders, speeding up approvals and construction. This initiative is a key component of the Homes for People action plan, aimed at unlocking more homes faster by creating favorable conditions for rapid housing development.

Click the image to view the designs and access the full document.

Vermonters need better housing options and more affordable homes. Achieving this goal requires changing how homes are built in Vermont, particularly regarding the location and types of new homes.

Currently, Vermont’s housing production is focused on large and expensive single-family homes on sizable lots and large-scale multi-family apartments. However, Vermonters seeking housing options in-between, such as duplexes, four-plexes, cooperative housing, senior housing units, age-friendly homes, or townhouse condominiums, face limited choices. Regulatory and financial barriers have made developing diverse homes on a smaller footprint more challenging and complicated for small-scale developers who want to contribute to their communities.

This project aims to change that by unraveling regulatory complexities and reviving common-sense solutions that work for Vermont, such as Missing Middle Homes (MMH). The Vermont Homes for All Toolkit and community engagement process will re-introduce MMH to Vermont by focusing statewide attention on small-scale gentle infill and incremental development as a strategy to address Vermont’s housing and affordability crisis.

Video: In March 2024 the Department of Housing & Community Development launched the Homes for All Toolkit at a special event that brought together novice and emerging small-scale home builders, community development professionals, and local leaders interested in innovative home-building and home-renovation solutions to connect, network, and learn. Watch the Summit recording here!

Supporting the evolution of our single-detached neighbourhoods can be daunting, so Small Housing created the Gentle Density Network as a space where local government planners can tackle these collective challenges together.

Through the Gentle Density Webinar library, you can dive deep into the world of gentle density housing with insights from top experts from government, industry, and community sectors.

Explore cutting-edge practices, unpack emerging trends, and stay ahead of the curve with the latest gentle density insights. You can access the full library of webinars here, and can sign up to the Gentle Density Network here so as to stay informed on upcoming events.

The below is an extract from Small Housing’s Gentle Density Housing Bylaw Guide: A pathway for local governments, a guide that aims to provide local governments with a roadmap for changing their zoning bylaws to allow gentle density housing, based on experiences from jurisdictions leading the way. It was developed with support from CHMC.

Key insights:

Zoning bylaws across Canada vary widely in structure and content, reflecting applicable legislation and calibrated to the local conditions of the communities they serve to regulate. This diversity of bylaw formats makes adopting a ‘one-size fits- all’ Gentle Density Housing zone inappropriate in most circumstances.

Rather, as the below charts outline, bylaw changes must reflect local conditions, while allowing more flexibility in the housing options that are permitted in residential neighbourhoods. Some communities will have the resources to do extensive research and background work as part of a detailed approach to zoning reform, and others may choose to take a simpler path in adopting basic zoning parameters that will support gentle density housing.

There is value in learning from the approaches already in use by leading communities, and the table below provides precedent infill zones in select larger municipalities in British Columbia and Alberta.

This Guide aims to provide local governments with a roadmap for changing their zoning bylaws to allow gentle density housing, based on experiences from jurisdictions leading the way.

Drawing from the experiences of local governments in British Columbia mandated to enable gentle density housing, and sharing the wide range of approaches that could be taken, the Guide provides technical and procedural insight from basic zoning bylaw amendments through to a suite of regulatory changes to make it easier to produce gentle density housing.

Key features:

  • An example work plan for the zoning bylaw update; 
  • Discussion and critical questions to ask around key zoning parameters such as setbacks and parking; 
  • Insight into other bylaws and policies that should also be updated to achieve a cohesive framework; and
  • Example precedent gentle density housing zones from Kelowna, Victoria, Coquitlam, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver.

Key insights:

In November of 2023, the province of British Columbia released their “Homes for People Plan” that drastically reduced zoning and municipal barriers to the creation of gentle density homes. In summary, new legislation requires all local governments in British Columbia to update their zoning bylaws to allow up to three to four units in all single-family zones and up to six units for properties with frequent bus service.

This resource, developed by the province, is intended to help local governments and their community members understand the legislative changes introduced related to small-scale, multi-unit housing (SSMUH).

Note: The information in this tool kit is for guidance only and is not a substitute for provincial
legislation. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on for that purpose.

Key insights:

This Small Housing guidance paper presents research findings from interviews, focus groups and a multi-stakeholder roundtable, including the participation of industry experts, building officials and key government representatives to unpack current barriers to adoption and explore approaches to accelerating the use of offsite construction to grow gentle density supply.

This guidance paper provides background information, identifies key barriers and offers recommendations in seven areas:

  1. Government Initiatives
  2. Industry Collaboration and Knowledge Building
  3. Municipal Toolkits for Offsite-Ready Local Governments
  4. Offsite-Ready Construction Financing
  5. Pilot Studies for Modular Streamlining
  6. Standard Design Catalog and Design Competition
  7. Enterprise Zone Incentives