Custom Home Builder in Deer Lake, Burnaby

Deer Lake lots are among the largest in Burnaby — many run 8,000 to 14,000 square feet, with some park-adjacent parcels larger still. That scale supports serious architecture: generous setbacks, meaningful outdoor space, and the ability to keep significant mature trees while still building a full-sized custom home.

More than most Burnaby neighbourhoods. The lots carry mature Douglas fir, cedar, and broadleaf trees, and Burnaby enforces the 20 cm diameter threshold carefully in this part of the city. Any development application triggers a full tree inventory, and designs that don't account for the canopy get redrawn at permitting. We work with arborists from the feasibility stage — before a single sketch is drawn — so the trees are a design asset rather than a permit-stage surprise.

Deer Lake is a car-dependent neighbourhood for most daily needs, which is part of what makes it feel like a remove from the rest of Burnaby. Metrotown is a ten-minute drive. Edmonds SkyTrain is accessible. The tradeoff for the large lots, heavy canopy and park adjacency is that you won't walk to a grocery store from most addresses. Owners who build here tend to want that tradeoff.

Provincial SSMUH legislation permits up to four units on most single-family lots in Burnaby, and Deer Lake is no exception in principle. In practice, the neighbourhood's character is firmly single-family — the larger lot scale, the heavy canopy and the established estate-style setting mean most owners here are building or renovating a single home rather than densifying. Lots are not within the 400-metre frequent-transit bonus area for any SkyTrain station, so the higher unit-count threshold doesn't apply. We run feasibility honestly when an owner does want to explore multiplex, but it's the exception in Deer Lake.

Both, but the conversation tilts more toward renovation here than in most Burnaby neighbourhoods. The original housing on Deer Lake's larger lots was generally built to a serious standard — solid foundations, real structural framing, careful site planning relative to the canopy — and many of these homes have aged well enough to justify a deep renovation rather than a rebuild. When the foundation is sound and the home's relationship to the trees is worth preserving, renovation is often the more disciplined long-term call. We assess on a parcel-by-parcel basis.

Permitting on a Deer Lake project tends to run longer than central-Burnaby permitting because the tree-bylaw review is detailed and the design review on larger projects can be substantive. Most Deer Lake custom-home permits run roughly 10 to 14 months from design submission to issuance. Construction typically runs another 16 to 22 months because the projects are larger and the finishes are more deliberate. We build those windows into the schedule from week one and keep the arborist involved through the construction phase, not just at permitting.