Home Renovations in BC: Keeping Your House and Getting Approval
Your renovation may require a long and costly approval process and still not allow you to keep the house that you currently have.
Most people I’ve met who want to renovate a part of their home or a garage mistakenly assume that municipal rules don’t apply to anything that isn’t being modified. Renovating your house to create additional suites may require an equal amount of work in upgrades to the existing building. Planning an addition may lead to the city to require you to remove a portion of your house, thereby actually losing area. In this article, you’ll gain an understanding of how current regulations may apply retroactively to an existing house.
How Will the Existing Building Be Treated?
Establish the status of the existing house
An existing house may not meet today’s zoning requirements. It may be too close to a property line, taller than currently permitted, or larger than the current floor area allowance. That does not automatically mean it must be altered to comply, but it also does not mean you can extend or reconstruct it in its present form.
Before deciding what to retain, establish whether the existing conditions were lawfully created and what rules govern their retention. Available permits, approved drawings, and a survey help establish what was approved and by comparison what exists today. I've seen a forced renovation of a house compliant at construction require half the basement to be filled in with gravel due largely to a subsequent change in the zoning’s floor area allowance.
Be specific about non-conforming conditions; “Grandfathered” is too vague to rely on when planning a renovation. A house lawfully built under an earlier setback requirement is different from an addition constructed without the required approval. A non-conforming residential use is also different from a permitted use in a building that exceeds a dimensional limit. These situations require different assessments.
British Columbia’s zoning guidance distinguishes “non-conforming uses” from buildings whose use and density comply but whose siting, size, or dimensions do not. Under the Local Government Act framework, the latter may be maintained, extended, or altered subject to conditions, including that the work does not create further contravention of the bylaw. Establish what you can keep and what the proposed renovation will require you to correct.
Confirm what your renovation is allowed to change
Retaining an existing wall, extending it, and demolishing and rebuilding it are different actions. Do not assume that permission for one establishes permission for the others even though they all work together as parts of the same design. For example, if a wall is closer to the property line than currently permitted, you need to determine whether it can be retained regardless of whether or not it’s in a part of the house being renovated.
The same investigation applies to excess height, floor area, or lot coverage. Establish whether the proposal can proceed with the existing condition, whether the design must change, or whether a separate approval is necessary. Do this before deciding the extent of demolition. The amount and location of retained construction should follow a confirmed renovation strategy.
Identify required upgrades to the retained building
Permission to retain the building’s location and dimensions is only one part of the assessment. You also need to establish which upgrades the proposed work will require. One past client abandoned adding a small basement bathroom because it would have triggered energy upgrades for the whole house.
Creating additional dwellings can involve changes to fire protection, structure, ventilation, plumbing, and other building systems. A complete technical design is unnecessary at this stage, but major upgrade requirements should be identified early enough to inform your decision. They can affect both the cost of retaining the house and the suitability of the proposed arrangement.
Additionally, you may successfully obtain a required development permit but then be rejected at the building permit stage.
Where municipalities differ
Vancouver’s character-house retention program is an example of a specific municipal incentive for keeping an existing house. Eligible houses in R1-1 may qualify for options involving additional floor area, conversion into multiple dwellings, and infill development. The first steps include establishing eligibility and reviewing the retention guidelines. That program should not be confused with the rules governing legal non-conforming buildings. One concerns incentives and conditions for a particular form of retention; the other concerns the legal treatment of existing conditions that do not meet current regulations.
If you have an older, character house, investigate whether your city offers retention provisions. Its age alone does not establish eligibility for an incentive or permission to retain every existing condition.
What Must Happen to Secure Approval?
Identify the required permits and reviews
Once the proposed arrangement, building envelope, and treatment of the existing house have been established, identify the approvals needed to proceed. Depending on the property and scope of work, these may include a development permit, building permit, engineering review, tree-related approvals, and environmental or hazard assessments.
Determine what information is required, and which decisions must be made before other work can proceed. If an assessment could substantially change the design, complete it early. Making notable changes after the Development Permit or the Building Permit have been released typically require that you go back and apply for an amendment to one or more permits.
Where municipalities differ
Vancouver, Burnaby, and Coquitlam provide a clear example of different development permit (DP) requirements. Development permits are generally NOT required for R1 small-scale housing in Burnaby, but a property with streamside protection may require one. Coquitlam advises that adding dwellings to an existing property or building MAY require a development permit. A multiplex project or multiple conversion dwelling in Vancouver DOES require a development project. Some cities encourage a pre-application meeting with a development planner for a proposal depending on the final configuration. The applicable local process must therefore be checked, even for apparently identical renovations.
My RAD Study™ is a comprehensive, fixed-fee predesign service that confirms all of these applicable regulations and required approvals. The study then establishes compatibility of your objective with the city’s rules, to avoid much wasted time and money in pursuing an arrangement that will ultimately be rejected. Regularly, projects with other architects move through early design without digging deep into the bylaws, memos, and other rules. The city then rejects the proposal, and the design is forced back to the drawing board; this can waste months – and I know of projects by other firms in which it has.
If you have time and money to waste, fill your boots – but not with me. If you want to see how my RAD Study™ and the rest of the SAPPHR Strategy™ get approvals sooner by avoiding designs that miss regulations and how they avoid subsequent battles with the city, use the link below to book a 30-minute Diagnostic Session with me.
DISCLAIMER:
The information included in this article is to an extent generic and intended for educational and informational purposes only; it does not constitute legal or professional advice. Thorough efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of the article at the time of writing, but having read this article, you understand and agree that Daniel Clarke Architect Inc. disclaims any legal liability for actions that may arise from reliance on the information provided in this article. I am an architect in BC, but readers are recommended to consult with their own architect on their specific situations before making any decisions or exercising judgement based on information in the article.
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