How many homes are on one Vancouver house lot?

What we found

• 1.5

  Homes on the average Vancouver house lot, counting suites and laneway houses. Our range is 1.44 to 1.59, from the 2021 census and the 2021 assessment roll.

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• 4 in 10

  Vancouver houses with a secondary suite, in 2021. Our range is 37% to 45%. It was about 42% in 2016, so the share has held steady.

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• 1 in 10

  Vancouver house lots with a laneway house permit. About 6,600 permits since the program began in 2009, on about 68,000 house lots.

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• ~110,000

  Homes on Vancouver’s 72,900 house lots in 2021, counting suites and laneway houses. Our range is 105,000 to 116,000.

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• 1,600

  Suites and laneway houses on Vancouver permits since January 2024. That’s more than the roughly 1,200 homes in multiplex projects over the same time.

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How many homes can be on one property in Vancouver?

It depends on the zone and the lot. On a typical lot zoned R1-1, which covers most of the city’s old single-family lots, you can build:

• A house with a suite and a laneway house: three homes on one lot
• A duplex, often with a suite in each half
• A multiplex of three or four homes on a lot at least 10 m (33 ft) wide and 306 m²
• Up to six homes, or eight if all are rentals, on a lot at least 15.1 m wide and 557 m²

So the rules allow three to eight homes. What is actually there today is about 1.5. See duplex vs triplex vs multiplex for what fits your lot.

Rules checked: November 2026. Sources: Vancouver R1-1 District Schedule (June 2026). Bylaws change, so we confirm every figure against your specific lot during feasibility.

How many Vancouver houses have a suite?

About 4 in 10. The census counts a house with one suite as two homes, called an “apartment or flat in a duplex.” Vancouver had 54,305 of those in 2021. That points to about 27,150 houses with a suite. The census also found 44,750 single-detached homes, and that count includes laneway houses.

The range is wide on purpose. About 5,700 houses on the roll didn’t show up in either census count. Some were empty on census day. Some have two suites, which the census counts as a small apartment building. If none of them have a suite, the share is 37%. If all do, it’s 45%.

Has the share of houses with suites changed?

Not much. In 2018, Jens von Bergmann estimated from 2016 census and assessment data that about 42% of Vancouver’s single-family homes had a suite. That figure is still quoted. Our 2021 update lands at about 40%, inside the same range. His work is shared under a Creative Commons licence, and we built on it with credit.

Rules checked: November 2026. Sources: Jens von Bergmann: Teardowns and emissions, Mountain Doodles (May 2018), Jens von Bergmann: Empty suites, Mountain Doodles (January 2018). Bylaws change, so we confirm every figure against your specific lot during feasibility.

How many laneway houses are in Vancouver?

About 6,600 have had permits. The City reported more than 3,300 permits by mid-2018, nine years after the program began. City data shows about 3,300 more since then. Not every permit gets built, so the true count of finished laneway houses is a little lower.

The pattern is close to the opposite of multiplexes. Sunset and Victoria-Fraserview lead on laneway houses, while Shaughnessy leads on multiplexes. See the Vancouver multiplex map and what a laneway house costs.

Rules checked: November 2026. Sources: City of Vancouver: Amendments to laneway home regulations, report to Council (June 19, 2018), City of Vancouver Open Data: Issued building permits. Bylaws change, so we confirm every figure against your specific lot during feasibility.

The quiet route still adds more homes

Multiplexes get the headlines. But suites and laneway houses, built one lot at a time, still add more homes each year. If you’re weighing a suite, see what a legal suite involves.

How we counted

Lots: every lot zoned RS, RT or First Shaughnessy on the 2021 assessment roll, held as one title, with a building assessed. There were 72,918. That is wider than the 61,700 R1-1 and First Shaughnessy lots in our single-family homes count, because the census can’t split the RT zones out.

Homes: the 2021 census count of occupied homes by building type for the City of Vancouver. Laneway houses: more than 3,300 permits to mid-2018, from the City’s report to Council, plus City permit data since. We took laneway houses out of the census single-detached count to get houses with no suite.

• The census only types occupied homes. An empty suite isn’t counted, so the low end of our range is an undercount
• The census taker decides whether a house has a suite. Some suites are missed
• Laneway permits aren’t finished homes. A few permits are never built
• We did this city-wide. The census doesn’t publish counts by zone, so a few houses in other zones are in the totals

Rules checked: November 2026. Sources: Statistics Canada: 2021 Census Profile, City of Vancouver (structural type of dwelling), City of Vancouver Open Data: Property tax report (2020 to 2026 rolls), City of Vancouver Open Data: Issued building permits, City of Vancouver: Amendments to laneway home regulations, report to Council (June 19, 2018). Bylaws change, so we confirm every figure against your specific lot during feasibility.

What it means if you own a house lot

1. Your lot probably holds more than one home already, or could with a suite. That counts toward what you can build next
2. A laneway house or suite is the cheapest way to add a home without rebuilding. See laneway house costs
3. Check what your lot allows before you choose. A lot feasibility study shows the options side by side