Blueridge and Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing

Note: this article was originally published in the March 2026 issue of the Blueridge Bulletin. It’s retained here to continue to summarize how SSMUH has grown and changed since it first appeared.

Click to enlarge.

Night of the Living SSMUH
Jeff Powell

A council meeting held on February 9th and 10th [of 2026] provided insight into how the DNV is responding to Provincial Bill 25, which imposes Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing (SSMUH) on all communities in BC with over 5,000 residents.

That’s right. SSMUH is back.

The province appears to have forced this issue because many communities – including the DNV – didn’t respond to their earlier attempt to create SSMUH in their intended way. In particular, the DNV responded by allowing a house, suite, and coach house on just about every single-family lot. But such responses were apparently not acceptable to provincial leaders, and Bill 25 was created to force SSMUH into place. All BC cities of over 5,000 residents must respond to Bill 25 by the end of June 2026.

What is SSMUH?

As a reminder, SSMUH requires cities to allow the development of more housing units on single-family zoned lots. Lots less than 280 square metres must allow up to three units, and lots over that size must allow four units, or six if they are within 400 metres of frequent transit. In the DNV, there are only 57 lots of less than 280 square metres, and there are apparently none in Blueridge or Seymour Heights. The rest – about 20,000 lots – will therefore be allowed 4 or 6 units. But those near frequent transit are only in Lynn Valley and along Marine Drive near Lions Gate. Thus, here in Blueridge, we’re only looking at the potential for four housing units per lot.

As happened when SSMUH was first discussed in 2024, some lots are exempt for various reasons. In particular, parcels in hazard zones – high fire risk, flood risk, geotechnical risk, and so on – can be excluded. In the case of Blueridge, the exempt areas form a border around our community, as seen in the dark purple areas in the map above this article. This exempted region is slightly different from the one presented in early 2024. Previously, the area along Blueridge Creek was excluded from SSMUH development as well, but at this time those lots are now anticipated to be allowed SSMUH development.

As the province is requiring all municipalities of a certain size to adopt SSMUH and zone for it, the DNV has no real choice but to comply by the deadline at the end of June 2026. However, they can apply some limits (like the hazardous areas designated above), and certain other options are available. At the February 9 workshop, DNV staff wanted feedback from Council on those items. The specific questions were:

1. Should staff prepare zoning bylaw changes that restrict SSMUH in hazard areas? Council appeared to unanimously support this choice.
2. Should staff apply for an exception along Marine Drive due to the ongoing planning for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on that corridor? The general idea presented was that once BRT arrives, the area along Marine Drive might be zoned for substantially higher density residential use than SSMUH allows thanks to Bill 47, which created Transit Oriented Areas, which must allow significantly taller buildings. Here Council was mostly supportive, but concerns were expressed over the lack of a deep analysis of the Marine Drive area. It was suggested that more information about the district’s commercial and light industrial lands was needed to determine the best future zoning of that area. Along with this question, staff raised the issue of proactively amending the Official Community Plan (OCP) to designate that higher density now. Council seemed opposed to this item, or at least questioned it seriously.
3. The Province has opened the door to allowing municipalities to require affordable or special needs housing in the sixth unit of a SSMUH development, and staff wanted to know if Council supported that idea. Council was divided on this item, but it appears the majority wants to at least consider that option in the bylaws.
4. Finally, the Province also left open the option of allowing Residential Rental Tenure Zoning (RRTZ) in SSMUH developments, but they have recommended against it as they feel it will raise the cost so much as to make SSMUH impractical to build. RRTZ allows a city to require long-term rental to be part of a development. Despite the Province’s stated position, Council expressed an interest in learning more about the option, as it might help meet the rental unit construction requirements imposed by the Province.

At this point the staff presentation paused for questions & answers. Various items were discussed, but a few of the more interesting things that came up were:

• The current best guess is that SSMUH developments will be very limited, at least initially. The DNV sees about 120 permits per year for new home builds, coach houses, and major additions combined. That’s less than 1% of the housing stock per year. If that rate remains consistent, SSMUH will be slow to arrive.
• New SSMUH developments may be built and sold as strata.
• The District will always have the ability to prohibit a SSMUH development for safety and capacity reasons, specifically around services. If there is inadequate water to fight a fire in a proposed building, or the sewer lines are too small to support the proposed units, building permits can be denied. Developers could opt to enhance those services at their expense, but that would likely be very costly. It is probable that issues like these will slow the development of SSMUH in neighbourhoods like Blueridge. Our water & sewer supplies (along with electricity and natural gas) are only so large. A few SSMUH developments may be enough to strain them to the point that no more can be developed until the limiting system is replaced with a new one of larger capacity.
• There was considerable speculation about whether SSMUH will cause property values to rise, with some councillors worried about resultant speculation. But the counterpoint was made that with so many parcels being available to SSHUH, there may be less pressure on prices. The opposite consideration is also possible. Will lots in the hazard zones see price changes, either because they are unable to be developed for SSMUH (thus becoming less valuable) or perhaps because they and their neighbours cannot be impacted by SHMUH development (possibly making them more desirable)? Only time will tell on this issue, since there is simply no data available.

This is where the workshop ended on February 9th. When it resumed on the 10th, the focus changed to…

What Will SSMUH Look Like?

Next, staff addressed issues around how SSMUH developments might fit into existing neighbourhoods and what they could look like. The details here are a bit complex and hard to present simply. Even the staff presentation left Council with many questions. However, the general idea is that maximum building heights would increase to 3 storeys, fully underground basements would be prohibited (but partial basements on a slope would still be fine), and no more than 2 buildings would be allowed on a single lot. Other changes would allow more building in the front yard and larger coach houses.

There would also be changes to the allowed Floor Space Ratio (FSR) and how it is calculated. Presently, some items, including basements and garages, do not count towards the FSR. The intent is to change the calculation so that all square footage applies towards the FSR, but to increase the allowed FSR so that, for normal homes, the maximum allowed house size would not change. For SSHMU, the FSR would increase to a range of 0.7 – 1.0 for the (up to) 4-unit SSMUH developments that we might see in Blueridge. A density allowance increase of about 500 square feet per additional unit would be available so that the resulting units are not too small. A similar range applies to the building coverage percentage.

There were many questions from Council, mostly concerned with the worst-case scenarios possible. Three storey SSMUH developments (and standard single-family homes built without basements) could be visually larger than what is currently built, even as the useable square footage remains the same. While not everyone expressed their opinions on these issues, those that did seemed split. Some were concerned about impacts on neighbouring parcels, and others saw value in new development forms.

Due to the very tight timing allowed by Bill 25, there will be limited additional public engagement before the bylaws must be amended. However, there was extensive public engagement in 2024 on this topic already, and the gist of SSMUH and how it is implemented hasn’t really changed since those presentations.

Make no mistake, however. Thanks to Bill 25, SSMUH is coming to the DNV and all of Metro Vancouver. How many SSMUH developments we will see, and when, is an open question, but at this point all Council can do is make the changes required by Provincial law to allow it. If they don’t do so, the Province has given itself the authority to step in and make the changes unilaterally.