Infrastructure & Servicing

This Small Housing Guidance Paper examines the viability of redeveloping houses in single family neighbourhoods with more homes on the same property, presenting recommendations that will assist various actors involved in setting financial and cost recovery policies as it relates to new gentle density development.

Key policy considerations explored include:

Enabling Tenure Options (Rental & Ownership)

Allowing individual ownership, or strata-titling, for each home on a lot will encourage more new units to
be constructed versus requiring that a property have a single owner (i.e. the owner rents out the additional units, or all residents share a single mortgage).

Leveling the cost playing field and reducing risk

Constructing multi-unit buildings is more complex and costly than single family homes; by offering standardized designs and simplifying approval processes it is possible to reduce the uncertainty and costs involved.

Building in affordability

Given the small number of units involved in these projects, it is administratively simpler and more financially viable to take any affordability requirements or financial contribution (if required) and combine them for affordable housing on a larger site.

For the comprehensive suite of Small Housing Guidance Papers, check them out in the Toolbox Resource Library. Simply search for “Guidance Paper”.

How do we make room for more housing without overwhelming our infrastructure?

As new policies open the door to gentle density across BC, communities are facing tough questions about how to finance and manage the infrastructure needed to support it.

This short, practical guidance paper, developed by Small Housing with support from Urban Systems and ECONorthwest, explores how local governments, planners, and utility providers can prepare for incremental growth. It highlights where current development finance tools fall short, and offers clear, actionable recommendations—from sewer capacity to electrification—to help infrastructure keep pace with policy.

Whether you’re in planning, engineering, or policy, this resource will help you navigate what comes next.

This Metro Vancouver study investigates the cost of providing infrastructure and services to neighbourhoods with varying residential densities, with the goal of informing municipal planning and regional growth policies for Metro Vancouver.

Key insights:

• The study emphasizes a complex relationship between residential densities and infrastructure costs influenced by factors like infrastructure age, existing capacity, and the physical landscape of the serviced area.
• Evidence presented suggests that infrastructure and servicing costs per capita and per unit are significantly higher for houses compared to apartment developments.
• Increasing density is identified as a potential contributor to lowering housing development and municipal operating costs over time.
• The study includes a literature review on municipal infrastructure and associated costs.
• Cost calculations are provided for various factors, including development cost charges, municipal operating costs, property taxes/utility fees, and infrastructure servicing, categorized by housing type.

In the fall of 2023, the Province of British Columbia introduced changes to the Local Government Act and Vancouver Charter (VC) to allow more small-scale, multi-unit housing in land use zones that are otherwise restricted to single-family dwellings or duplexes.

This policy manual aims to support local governments in amending their local zoning bylaws and associated legislation to allow for small-scale multi-unit housing (SSMUH) in traditionally single-family zoned areas as per recent requirements mandated by the Province of BC.

Key insights:

The manual provides:

• An overview of the new SSMUH legislative requirements and implementation timelines for municipalities to come into compliance
• Best practices for updating zoning bylaws, guidance on related policies that may need to be updated (including housing tenure options, estimating potential increases in density, and planning for increased demand on municipal infrastructure and services)
• Sample site standards that local governments can use to update their zoning bylaws to allow for financially viable ADU and 3-6 unit housing developments.

This report aims to rapidly develop and scale solutions to address some of the main land use policy, project financing and design challenges faced in delivering affordable missing middle housing.

Key recommendations:

• Reforming zoning bylaws to allow as-of-right development of Missing Middle housing,
• Reforming current public consultation processes
• Creating incentive programs and seed funding (via CMHC) for the development of missing middle housing
• Establishing missing-middle specific building standards and development fees
• Creating a set of missing middle typologies that can over time allow for replicable approval, design, finance, and construction phases.

A pilot project has been identified in Little Jamaica (Toronto) to test out the proposed affordability framework and housing financial models advanced in this report.

Additionally, a National Scalability roadmap has been created to continue to progress the work of the Missing Middle Lab, through maintaining partnerships, bolstering municipal support, and developing design catalogues and financial incentives.

This report was authored by CMHC & Keesmaat Group.

This report from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, part of UC Berkeley, highlights barriers faced by developers working in states that have enabled multiple units to be built on traditionally single-family zoned lots.

Key insights:

The report details that Middle Housing delivers many benefits to communities:

• Increases racial equity in housing and neighbourhood access
• Providesentry-level homeownership opportunities
• Creates lower greenhouse gas emissions per household).

The following developer challenges are highlighted:

• Design requirements need to be flexible/supportive of missing middle housing;
• Larger projects of 8-12 units need to be permitted to make projects financially viable; that complicated utility and subdivision rules deter small-scale development;
• Approval timelines need to be more efficient; and that there is currently a lack of traditional financing tools to create a funding package for projects.

Key recommendations:

• Introducing development code changes beyond zoning reforms, including updating design requirements and assessing current impact fees and utility requirements
• Allocate dedicated resources to streamline permitting and approval processes
• Considering more ambitious land use changes, such as increasing the maximum units that can be developed per lot, to help foster increased missing middle housing development.

This paper recounts early-stage research conducted by the City of Vancouver on a variety of small-scale housing types.

Key insights:

The report outlines how a variety housing types, be they sixplexes, cottages, rowhouses, small lot infill or others, can work to advance the goals of creating ground-oriented, affordable, neighbourhood scale development.

An information sheet is provided for each housing form with a mock-up to display how new development can take shape on single or two-three lot consolidations in existing residential neighbourhoods.

Other areas explored include:

• Technical feasibility
• Marketability
• Ownership options

Report prepared by Patricia St.Michel – City Plans, Planning Department, Community Services Group, City of Vancouver

This report from BC Housing explores the tiny home typology and explores ways to regulate and legalize this built form within the context of BC.

The report provides sample cost estimates for building tiny homes, highlights opportunities (including build time and environmental impacts) and challenges (including building code and standard compliance) and discusses potential home warranty solutions.

The bulk of the resource features BC and North American case studies that delve into project details such as construction timelines, project financing, and lessons learned.

This report was compiled and crafted by the research and writing team of Anastasia Koutalianos, Writer and Co-founder BC Tiny House Collective; Christina Radvak, Project Manager at Light House; Joanne Sawatzky, Director of Green Building Services at Light House; and Sarah Jones, Project Coordinator at Light House.