Custom homes on Burnaby and North Vancouver slopes, by people who have permitted on them.

What this guide is, and what it isn't

This is a working builder's guide to hillside residential construction in Burnaby and North Vancouver. We've built and permitted on Capitol Hill, on the Burnaby Heights escarpment, in Buckingham Heights, and on a half-dozen Lynn Valley and Edgemont lots. Most of the lessons here came out of those builds, not out of a code book.

It is not a replacement for an Engineer registered with Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Every hillside build needs site-specific geotechnical and structural design. What this guide does is help you ask the right questions before you write an offer, before you commit to an architect, and before the excavator shows up.

The four hillside problems

Every hillside build comes back to the same four problems. The order matters — solve them in this sequence, and the rest of the design follows.

1. What is the soil actually doing?

Soil bearing, soil stability, and groundwater are the three variables that decide everything downstream. A geotechnical report tells you what's beneath the topsoil — glacial till (excellent), marine clay (poor and creeps), uncontrolled fill (avoid), or weathered bedrock (variable). The report dictates foundation type, retaining-wall design, and drainage strategy. We cover how to read one in our foundations & geotech sub-guide.

2. Where does the water go?

A sloped lot collects water from everywhere uphill of it. Roof drainage, perimeter foundation drainage, surface stormwater, and seasonal groundwater all need a designed path to the municipal storm main — never to a soak-pit at the bottom of the slope, and never against a neighbour's property line. The detail at the foundation wall is where most leaks happen; we walk through the assembly in our drainage & retaining-walls sub-guide.

3. How does the height calculation land?

Burnaby measures the 10.0 m height limit against average grade across the building footprint. On a steep lot, the uphill and downhill grades can disagree by two metres. The average sits in the middle — which can mean you lose a foot of ceiling on the upslope side or gain it on the downslope. Get the calculation in writing, signed by a BCLS land surveyor, before the architect commits to a roof line.

4. What about the trees?

Mature evergreens stabilize hillside soil. The Burnaby Tree Bylaw protects them, and the geotechnical engineer often insists on retaining specific trees regardless of what the bylaw says. Walk the lot with a certified arborist before you commit to a footprint — see our Burnaby Tree Bylaw guide for the specifics.

In this hub

Two sub-guides go deeper on the parts of hillside construction that move the most money — the engineering on the way down, and the water on the way back up.

Where hillside lots actually are

Not every "view lot" is a hillside build. The lots that actually trigger the slope-hazard rules and the extra engineering cluster in specific neighbourhoods. Worth knowing before you write an offer.

• — Capitol Hill — east-facing escarpment, most lots are slope-hazard.
• — Burnaby Heights — the upper streets above Hastings drop quickly to the inlet.
• — Buckingham Heights — large lots, complex grade across the building envelope.
• — Cariboo — north-facing slope, drainage is the dominant issue.
• — Deer Lake — estate-scale lots, varied slope by parcel.
• — Government Road — large lots, drainage routing toward Burnaby Lake matters.
• — Lynn Valley — North Vancouver District, most lots are above the slope threshold.
• — North Vancouver — upper terraces and the slope below Cleveland Dam.

A 2024 LandlordBC review of North Shore residential permits found that more than two-thirds of new single-family permits issued in the District of North Vancouver in 2023 were on lots with grade change exceeding 15%. Slope is the rule on the North Shore, not the exception.

How to plan a hillside custom home

Seven steps, in the order we walk every hillside client through.

1. 1

   Walk the lot with a builder before you write an offer

   Before subjects come off, walk the lot with a builder who has actually permitted on slope. Note the cross-fall, the trees, the visible bedrock, the position of the curb, and where the lot drains today. Photograph everything. This 30-minute site walk is the single highest-leverage hour in a hillside purchase.

2. 2

   Order a current title search and check for slope-hazard notations

   Pull a current title from the LTSA. Look for slope-hazard designations, statutory rights-of-way for drainage, building schemes that pre-date the current zoning, and any geotechnical covenants registered against the title. We have seen lots where a 1970s covenant restricts foundation type to a degree the buyer never saw.

3. 3

   Commission a topographic and arborist survey

   Get a BCLS land surveyor on the lot to produce a topographic survey with 0.5 m contours, the existing tree locations, and the surveyed grade points the City will use for height calculation. Pair the survey with a certified arborist's report identifying which trees are protected and which can come out.

4. 4

   Engage a geotechnical engineer for a preliminary site assessment

   A preliminary assessment by an Engineer registered with EGBC, done before full design, costs a fraction of the final report and tells the architect the constraints they need to design within. The full report follows once the building footprint is defined. Doing it in this order saves redesign.

5. 5

   Design the foundation, drainage, and retaining walls together

   On a hillside, these three are one system. The architect, the structural engineer, and the geotech need to coordinate the foundation type, the perimeter drainage assembly, and the retaining-wall lines in the same design pass. Sequencing them separately produces conflicts that cost real money to resolve in the field.

6. 6

   Resolve the height calculation in writing before drawings are finalized

   Have the surveyor produce a written average-grade calculation, and have the City of Burnaby planner confirm it in writing. We have seen permits stall for two weeks over a 20 cm dispute about which corner of the lot defines grade. Resolve it before architectural sets are sealed.

7. 7

   Plan the construction sequence for a sloped site

   Crane positions, lay-down area, mud-control, and the order in which the slope is excavated all matter more on a hillside. Build the construction-sequence drawing into the permit set rather than letting the trades figure it out on arrival. We have lost half a day on hillside sites because the next sub-trade could not reach the work area.

FAQ

Ten questions we field from owners considering a hillside lot.

What counts as a 'hillside' or 'sloped' lot in Burnaby?

Burnaby's building department treats a lot as a slope-hazard candidate when the natural grade change across the buildable area exceeds roughly 20% — about a one-metre rise per five horizontal metres. Anything steeper, anything in a designated slope-hazard overlay, or anything adjacent to a known unstable slope triggers extra geotechnical scrutiny and usually a Section 4.2 BC Building Code review of the foundation design.

Which Burnaby and North Vancouver neighbourhoods are affected?

On the Burnaby side: Capitol Hill, Burnaby Heights east of Boundary, Buckingham Heights, Cariboo Heights, parts of Deer Lake, Government Road, and the Sperling–Burnaby Lake escarpment. In North Vancouver and the District: most of Lynn Valley above the Trans-Canada, Lower Lonsdale's upper terraces, Capilano, Edgemont, Delbrook, and any lot on the slope below Cleveland Dam.

Do I always need a geotechnical report on a sloped lot?

Almost always. The City of Burnaby will not issue a building permit on a sloped lot without a current geotechnical report from an Engineer registered with Engineers and Geoscientists BC. North Vancouver City and District follow the same practice on anything above their slope-hazard threshold. The report is a permit condition, not a recommendation.

Does building on a slope force a particular foundation type?

It narrows the menu. Standard spread footings still work on competent native soil with shallow grade change. Stepped strip footings handle moderate slope. Where soil bearing is poor, where bedrock is deep, or where the slope is steep, helical piles or drilled cast-in-place concrete piles take over. The geotechnical report dictates which option is engineered.

How is building height calculated on a sloped Burnaby lot?

Burnaby's R1 schedule sets a 10.0 m maximum height above 'average grade', and the average is computed by surveying multiple points along the building footprint. On a steep lot the upslope grade and downslope grade can disagree by two metres or more — the average sits in the middle and can pull the effective roof height down. Get a written grade calculation from a registered surveyor before the architect commits to a roof line.

What about trees on a hillside lot?

Trees and slope interact badly. The Burnaby Tree Bylaw protects most trees over 20 cm DBH, and on slopes the City uses a 2:1 retention multiplier — removing a protected tree on slope can cost double the replacement plantings. Mature evergreens also stabilize soil; the geotechnical engineer may insist on retaining specific trees regardless of what the tree bylaw says.

How long does a hillside custom home take to permit and build?

Add roughly 2 to 4 months to a normal Burnaby permit timeline for the geotechnical report cycle, the slope-stability review, and any retaining-wall engineering. Construction adds another 2 to 6 weeks for stepped footings, deep-pile installation, and the more involved drainage assembly. Plan for 14 to 20 months from design start to occupancy on a typical Burnaby hillside.

What are the most common failures on hillside builds?

Three. First, drainage that was designed for a flat lot — a hillside lot moves more water and needs perforated tile, dimple board, and a positively pitched discharge that ties into the storm main, not a soak-pit at the bottom of the slope. Second, retaining walls treated as landscape rather than structure — anything over 1.2 m needs engineered design and a permit. Third, undersized footings where the soil report was not read carefully.

Can I add a basement or daylight basement on a slope?

Yes — and you usually should. A daylight basement on a downsloping lot is one of the few cases where the slope works for you: the rear is buried, the front opens to daylight, and you get usable square footage at lower cost per square foot than the storeys above. The detailing on the buried wall (drainage, waterproofing, insulation) has to be correct. We have a dedicated guide on the drainage assembly.

Is hillside construction more expensive?

Yes, but the driver is not what most owners expect. Foundation costs run materially higher because of stepped footings, pile work, and the engineered retaining walls. The real surprise is the schedule cost — a hillside lot reliably adds weeks of crane time, weather contingency, and additional inspection cycles. We discuss site-specific cost drivers in a planning call rather than publish ranges, because the variance from one Capitol Hill lot to the next is enormous.