The Missing Middle Housing Type

In 2022 The BC Government passed the Housing Supply Act in an attempt to create a framework for housing targets for specific municipalities.

Accompanied by Homes for People:  An action plan to meet the challenges of today and deliver more homes for people, faster, ten BC municipalities were tasked to provide 60,000 homes in the next five years.

These 10 municipalities are:

Vancouver, West Vancouver, Port Moody, District of North Vancouver, Delta, Abbotsford, Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and Kamloops.

Among the four pillars of the Action Plan is “Unlocking more homes, faster”, which purports to facilitate more small scale, multi-unit housing, which has been touted as The Missing Middle.

In anticipation of these changes municipalities have been scrambling to prepare changes to their Official Community Plans (OCPs), and their Zoning Bylaws (which control size, shape, siting and use requirements) to accommodate these new requirements.  At the end of September 2023, the housing targets were made public by the province.  These targets will undoubtedly temper and focus municipalities' efforts.

The adoption and execution of such fundamental shifts in our neighbourhoods is no light task.  Architects are uniquely positioned in that their broad training encompasses all aspects of the development and construction of our built environment.  This includes understanding the larger scale pre-development process and best practice city planning objectives, through to the nuances of building codes that protect our structures and lives.  Within these boundaries we assist developers in evaluating development feasibility.

The  changes that are imminent (and that have already been established in some cases) require the careful consideration and breadth of knowledge and experience of architects.

At Hearth Architectural, we have many years of experience working with the smaller scale development community to bring innovative housing solutions to the province, and continue to evolve with the development community into this new era of swift change.

 

Recent examples of our work relating to addressing The Missing Middle (most under development):

1.      Ladner Townhouses: converting a single family house into 6 townhouse units

2.      North Delta Subdivision: converting a single family house into 4 single family houses with suites

3.      Courtenay Apartments: converting a single family house in 24 rental units

4.      North Vancouver Triplex: converting a single family house into a triplex

5.      North Delta Subdivision: converting a large single lot into 6 duplexes and 4 single family lots with suites

6.      North Delta Subdivision: converting a single family lot into 3 single family lots with coach houses

7.      Vancouver Conversion,: converting a single family character house into a 4 ubnit multiple con version dwelling + 2 infill dwelling units

8.      North Delta Duplexes: converting a single institution lot into 6 duplexes for a total of 12 unit + 6 secondary suites

9.      City of North Vancouver Townhouses: converting a single family house in 4 townhouse units

If you are considering taking advantage of the evolving development market, we would welcome a conversation to talk about options.