City Lands Planning

In response to new provincial housing legislation changes, the City is considering updates to its Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw—the tools used to plan our communities. As we plan for future growth, we’re committed to keeping our city livable and vibrant. We’re currently exploring two primary focus areas: low-density housing (for instance, duplexes or fourplexes); and higher density housing on City-owned lands (City Lands).

Recently, the Government of British Columbia introduced a suite of changes to rapidly increase housing construction across the province.

As part of these changes, the City (along with other cities across B.C.) is required by provincial legislation to:

• Calculate their 20-year housing needs using a calculator from the Province.
• Build capacity into their planning tools to accommodate this 20-year housing supply. 

In response to these changes, the City of North Vancouver:

• Completed an Interim Housing Needs Report in December 2024, which outlined the City’s anticipated 20-year housing needs
• Determined how much of the 20-year housing need is already accounted for in the City’s planning tools and how much additional capacity is still needed. Through this, we know that he Zoning Bylaw needs updating to add capacity for another 6,556 housing units. To add that capacity into the Zoning Bylaw, some changes to the Official Community Plan may be required

In June 2025, Council directed staff to find ways to accommodate these future housing needs through updates to the City’s planning tools—the Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw. Two key strategies the City is exploring include: the addition of low density housing that protects the existing character of residential neighbourhoods; and increasing the future development potential – the number of homes – on five City-owned Lands.

One way the City could grow is to increase density on City Lands near the city centre and frequent transit areas. This will provide the City and Council a higher degree of control over the pace and rate of growth, help optimize the value of City assets, fund City amenities, and provide a diversity of housing types.

The City is exploring developing housing on the following five City Lands: City Hall Lands, Fire Hall Lands, East First Lands, Alder Street Lands, and Harry Jerome Neighbourhood Lands, as shown on the map below. The proposed changes are intended to help meet future housing needs over the coming decades. Council will retain control over the form and timing of development, as each site will require rezoning and a disposition process to make the lands available for development. 

The first site that the City intends to rezone and make available for development is the Harry Jerome Neighbourhood Lands. The Council approved funding strategy for the new Harry Jerome Community Recreation Centre, which is scheduled to open in 2026, includes the sale or long-term lease of surplus City lands at the Harry Jerome Neighbourhood Lands. Some of these lands have already been leased and developed (as the Lonsdale Square and Sunrise Senior Living projects), some will be retained by the City for park, and some will be made available for disposition in the near future.

City staff are proposing to amend the Official Community Plan to allow increased height and floorspace for the Harry Jerome Neighbourhood Lands. The allowable height is proposed to increase from 88 metres to 103 metres (i.e. approximately 30 storeys to 35 storeys) and the allowable gross floor area is proposed to increase from 2.5 to 2.9 times the site area. These changes would result in a gain of about 180 housing units. The benefits of this proposal include increased housing supply, added population to support local retail and service businesses, and additional revenue for the City. The proposed changes are anticipated to have minor impacts on traffic and infrastructure, and City staff consider the changes reasonable in the context of allowable height and density in the area.

Another way the City could grow while protecting the existing character of our neighbourhoods is through “low-density housing”. Low-density housing includes: single-detached houses, coach houses or laneway homes, townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, row houses and secondary suites. We can use low-density housing to grow livable neighbourhoods by gently increasing the availability of homes while still maintaining the existing look and feel of our residential neighbourhoods. 

Learn more on the Growing Livable Neighbourhoods webpage.

Next steps

• Community engagement to inform Zoning and Official Community Plan changes.

Fall 2025

• Staff will present recommendations to Council, based on engagement findings. 
  
   

Contact Us

Planning & Development Team
Phone: 604-982-9675
Email: zoningupdate@cnv.org