Updating Apartment Regulations
Motion 24 · Council Meeting, July 29, 2026
Summary
- Council approved updates to apartment zoning regulations to standardize and simplify rules across multiple district schedules, reducing complexity for developers and speeding up housing approvals.
- A new standardized unit mix requirement mandates that at least 35% of units in new multi-family buildings (8+ units) have two or more bedrooms, with at least 5% having three or more bedrooms, to better support families and diverse households.
- Floor area exclusion caps for residential amenities (such as balconies and common areas) are removed, giving developers more flexibility to include these features without penalizing overall density calculations.
- A new minimum residential storage requirement of 2.3 sq. m. (25 sq. ft.) per unit is introduced, replacing a patchwork of existing storage rules with a simplified, city-wide standard.
- The changes apply retroactively to 33 recently approved rezoning projects (in principle) and 4 enacted CD-1 by-laws, ensuring in-stream applications can benefit from the updated rules.
- Staff framed these changes as a response to housing viability pressures caused by high construction costs and stagnating rents, aiming to unlock more housing supply while maintaining livability standards.
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