Laneway & Coach Houses

Before any design work, we run the numbers against the City of Burnaby zoning bylaw — floor space ratio, setbacks from the rear lane, separation from the principal dwelling, height limits, parking. A laneway house that doesn't fit the envelope wastes months in revision. We do this analysis in the first week so the architect knows the box they're designing inside and the owner knows what's actually possible.

Most older Burnaby lots were serviced for a single home. Adding a laneway dwelling means tying into existing services or running new ones — which can mean trenching from the street, upgrading the panel in the main house, or paying for a separate water meter. We coordinate with the city's engineering department early, because servicing costs are the most commonly under-budgeted line on laneway projects and the timeline is dictated by utility scheduling, not ours.

Building in someone's backyard is a constrained-site problem. The main house is usually still occupied, the access is through a single gate or an alley, and there's nowhere to stage materials. We sequence the build so the heavy work happens early — excavation, foundation, framing — before the site gets too tight, and we coordinate deliveries to keep the family's driveway, garden and daily life functional. Site protection of the principal dwelling is non-negotiable.

The temptation on a 700-square-foot dwelling is to value-engineer the envelope. We don't. The wall assembly, the windows, the airtightness, the heat-recovery ventilation — all of it gets the same standard as the main house. Small homes are unforgiving when the envelope underperforms; comfort and energy bills both punish shortcuts. Heat-pump mini-splits with a proper HRV is our default mechanical strategy, sized for the actual load.

A laneway home is a separate dwelling unit, and the BC Building Code applies the same fire and sound separation rules between it and the main house as it would between two attached units. Spatial separation, exposed-face limits, fire-rated cladding where the buildings get close — these get designed in, not retrofitted. We coordinate the BC Building Code analysis with the architect so the permit goes in clean.

On a small footprint, every cabinet line, every tile transition, every window head height is visible from across the room. We treat laneway homes with the same finish standard as a primary residence — built-ins where storage is tight, real materials, kitchens that work for actual cooking. The finished product should make a guest forget they're in a 'secondary' dwelling.